After the Avengers

Cherry, Spider-Man, and more: 10 insights from the Russo brothers

The past, present, and future of Joe and Anthony Russo.

by Robin Bea
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The Russo brothers recently sat down with Inverse to talk about their new film Cherry and what’s next for them after the success of Avengers: Endgame.

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Here are the 10 biggest insights from the Russo brothers.

10. On growing up in Cleveland

“When you come from a place that has hardship, people band together. Our dad was an activist politician. When we were young, we got a close look at our community suffering. Life can be difficult, but that’s what we’ve loved about Cleveland. The resiliency.”

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9. On Tom Holland:

“We were really struck by Tom the first time we saw him audition. Casting a new Peter Parker was a very involved and difficult process. But as soon as we saw Tom we knew he was something extraordinarily special.”

8. On making art:

“We go where the spirit moves us. When we’re excited by something, it doesn't matter if it’s films, TV, comedy, drama. We’re excited by challenging ourselves. What can we do that’s different or unique?”

7. On what Cherry means to them:

“It’s a very personal movie because of the opioid crisis. The industrial Midwest is in the grips of this. People very close to us have died. It feels like the crisis is invisible right now, even though this was the most deadly year.”

6. On depicting opioid addiction:

“We don’t want to convey to our audience, ‘If you get addicted it’s an easy solve.’ It’s not. It’s going to cost you years of your life. We want people to open hearts and find ways to talk about these problems honestly.”

5. On their production company, AGBO:

“We want to use our leverage we’ve gained for a diverse array of projects. That includes new voices.”

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4. On adapting Battle of the Planets:

“We’re working hard on the script, we’re hoping to get into our pipeline at AGBO soon. We’re reinventing it for the modern age. We loved the cartoon growing up. We’re gonna take what we love and convert it into something new.”

3. On Gen Z:

“This next generation consumes visual information at a rate that is astounding. It’s faster than any of us can imagine, faster than we can understand. We didn’t grow up immersed the way they have.”

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2. On TikTok:

“TikTok is the new encyclopedia. If you go down the right rabbit hole, you’ll get a lot of information in a compressed period.”

1. On the next generation of artists:

“There are different forms of artistry. This next generation will have a radically different expression than we do. We can’t comprehend that yet, but it’ll be marvelous and special. Something the world’s never seen before.”

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