While Joe and Anthony Russo may have directed two of the highest grossing films of all time with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the brothers have not had anywhere near that level of success outside of the MCU. Their Netflix backed films The Electric State and the Gray Man haven’t lived up to expectations and now their spy universe of projects over at Amazon MGM, Citadel, faces an uncertain future.
Thed expensive spy thriller series was met with lackluster reception also, with its first season costing $200 million and failing to achieve significant viewership in the US never hitting Nielsen’s streaming charts, and leading to a delay in Season 2 to 2026 with a pause on any of the planned spin-offs.
This comes after the surprise departure of the studio head Jennifer Salke who was the one who spearheaded the idea of Citadel and who brought in the Russo Bros to make it happen. Season two of the main series, which stars Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra-Jones, is in post-production and the two spin-off series, Citadel: Diana and Citadel: Honey Bunny, still waiting word on their future after both did well in their home markets, Italy and India, neither had really hit on a global level.
An additional factor could be the recent acquisition of the James Bond franchise which Amazon MGM plans to expand after the next feature film. It’s unclear if the studio would want to push two global spy franchises at the same time.
I’d be curious what Disney and Marvel Studios are thinking right now. There’s little chance the Russo brothers directed Avengers: Doomsday is going reach the same heights as the duo’s biggest MCU outings.
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Todd Fisher
Todd lives in Northern California with "the wife," "the kids," "the dogs," "that cat," and he occasionally wears pants. His upcoming release, "Are You Woke Enough Yet?", is the culmination of too much time on social media and working in the film industry.
English (US) · 