If you read Marvel Comics, then you know that the multiverse storyline introduced in Loki and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness is based on the early stages of a series of comics from 2015 called Secret Wars. In it, “incursions” of many different universes are destroying the entire multiverse; through a series of events too complicated to describe, the main Marvel Universe is obliterated but a small piece of it is preserved as a place called “Battleworld,” which is ruled by a near-omnipotent Doctor Doom.
So is a Secret Wars movie on the horizon as the capper to this phase of Marvel movies, the same way Avengers: Endgame wrapped up Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? That’s the rumor, but nobody at Marvel will confirm that. The Russo brothers, who directed Endgame, gave an interesting quote about such a project on the red carpet for their new movie, The Gray Man, this week.
When asked about the possibility of returning to Marvel for something like Secret Wars, Joe Russo said:
Our love for Marvel is based on the books that we read as kids, the books that we fell in love with. The one series that we adored growing up was Secret Wars. It’s incredibly ambitious. It would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame. But it’s a massive undertaking. Those two movies were very hard to make. So trying to imagine making another two movies even bigger than those two? We’re going to have to sleep on that.
The Secret Wars the Russo read as kids is a different book than the recent one that seems to have inspired this phase of the MCU. That first Secret Wars, published in 1984-5, saw a slew of Marvel’s biggest heroes and villains transported to a barren planet where a being of limitless power known as the Beyonder forced them to fight. (The whole thing was designed to promote a series of action figures released around that time.) There are similarities between the two — the key planet in both books was called Battleworld, for example — but they’re different stories.
Still, the fact that they have such affection for that concept is interesting. And they definitely did not dismiss the possibility out of hand. Nothing about what they said precluded the rumors from being true. So if you really want to see a Secret Wars movie, there’s still a chance you might.
The Russos’ latest film, The Gray Man, is now streaming on Netflix. You can watch the Russo’ interview below:
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