Joe Russo names underperforming Marvel titles
- Joe Russo said spoiler culture around Avengers: Doomsday has become “over-policed,” then framed the film as Marvel’s reset after recent box-office misses. - In the same interview cycle, trade coverage tied that reset to Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and Fantastic Four: First Steps. - That matters because Doomsday now carries the burden of reviving Marvel’s event-movie machine before Secret Wars arrives in December 2027.
Marvel’s next Avengers movie is being sold as more than just another sequel. It’s being positioned as a repair job. Joe Russo, back in the director’s chair for Avengers: Doomsday, said this week that spoiler culture has become so intense that fans are “anxious about engaging with anything” before release. But the bigger thing sitting underneath those comments is Marvel’s own framing of Doomsday as the movie that has to steady the ship after a rough run. (cinemaexpress.com) ### What did Joe Russo actually say? Russo’s direct quote was about spoilers, not a formal box-office postmortem. He said online fandom has become “a little over-policed,” and that people are now nervous about interacting even with normal promotional material. His point was tha(cinemaexpress.com) feel like an event again. (cinemaexpress.com) ### Did he personally list the underperformers? Not in the quote itself. The named trio — Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps — shows up in the surrounding trade writeups explaining why Doomsday is being treated like a “soft rebo(cinemaexpress.com)isappointments and the studio’s need for a reset. (cinemaexpress.com) ### Why call Doomsday a reset? Because Marvel is going back to its most reliable playbook — the all-hands Avengers spectacle. Doomsday is set for December 18, 2026, and Marvel’s own film page leans hard into returning legacy characters and multiverse-scale stakes. The cast list(cinemaexpress.com)y back into urgency. (marvel.com) ### Why do those three movies matter so much? Because they were supposed to feed momentum into the next Avengers cycle. Instead, the narrative around all three became some version of “not enough lift.” Even when reception was better, the box-office conversation kept circling back to underperformance and whether Marvel’s middle tier had stopped feeling essential. Once that happens, the crossover m(marvel.com)has to justify the whole meal. (cinemaexpress.com) ### Is this just Marvel’s problem? Not really. The broader studio mood right now is that fewer, bigger movies may be the safer bet. That’s why summer-box-office chatter has focused on event pictures doing the heavy lifting again. Marvel just happens to be the clearest test case(cinemaexpress.com) floor is now. (msn.com) ### Why bring up spoiler culture now? Because spoiler anxiety and franchise fatigue are related in a weird way. When every beat of a blockbuster is treated like classified information, the marketing can start to feel tense instead of fun. Russo’s complaint is basically that fans have been trained to approach these movies def(msn.com)ing weekend. (cinemaexpress.com) ### What happens after Doomsday? Marvel already has the next step on the calendar. Avengers: Secret Wars is dated for December 17, 2027, again with the Russos directing. So Doomsday is not the finale — it’s the test. If it lands, Marvel gets its runway back. If it doesn’t, then the studio’s biggest recovery strategy starts looking less like a reset and more like a last attempt to recreate Endgame-era magic. (marvel.com) ### Bottom line The real news isn’t that Joe Russo suddenly torched specific Marvel titles on the record. It’s that his spoiler-culture comments landed in a moment when everyone around Marvel is openly treating Avengers: Doomsday as the movie that has to make the MCU feel necessary again. (cinemaexpress.com)-to-engage))
