‘Avengers 5’ and ‘Secret Wars’ officially return Russo Brothers to Marvel

The filmmakers behind Marvel’s most profitable movie are coming back to the Hollywood superhero giant.

Following earlier reports that Joe and Anthony Russo were in early talks to direct Avengers 5 and 6, Marvel Studios confirmed during their splashy Hall H panel at Comic-Con Saturday night that the brotherly duo is officially returning.

The Russos got their start at Marvel directing Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) before going on to direct the sequel, Captain America: Civil War (2016), and two Avengers movies, Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019). The latter is the second highest-grossing film of all time with a lifetime gross of $2.8 billion.

Avengers 5 was initially announced as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, set for release in 2026, and Avengers 6 was dubbed Avengers: Secret Wars, after the famous Marvel comic book arc, and set for release in 2027. However, Marvel fired Jonathan Majors, who was set to star as Kang, the pivotal big bad for this next phase of movies and shows, following the actor’s guilty verdict in his assault trial.

Marvel Comics released Secret Wars as a miniseries event in the 1980s. In it, a figure called the Beyonder transports groups of classic superheroes and villains to a planet called Battleworld, one giant arena in which the Beyonder compels them to do battle to determine whether good or evil will triumph.

Secret Wars is also the name of a more recent comic book arc that launched in 2015, in which different realities of the Marvel multiverse were destroyed and combined to form Battleworld, bringing various heroes from all those dimensions together.

There’s been a lot of talk of superhero fatigue in the press, given the lower box office returns for recent MCU titles, including Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and The Marvels. The Russos are tried and true hitmakers when it comes to return on investment.

Deadpool & Wolverine director Shawn Levy, who was also reportedly in early talks for the Avengers gig, previously commented to Entertainment Weekly, “Marvel had some misses,” but added, “People are way too quick to declare the last rites of the superhero genre. I don’t buy into that fatigue narrative.”

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Levy’s film, which earned record-breaking early ticket sales ahead of its debut in theaters on July 26, was also celebrated at Comic-Con. Marvel revealed the A-listers making splashy cameos in the film by rolling them out on stage.

The main Hall H panel on Saturday also previewed Captain America: Brave New World (Feb. 14, 2025), Thunderbolts (May 2, 2025), and The Fantastic Four (July 25, 2025).