Avengers: Doomsday brings together the Avengers, New Avengers, Wakandans, Fantastic Four, original X-Men, and almost certainly many more surprises. Managing that many heroes would be a nightmare for most directors, but Joe and Anthony Russo have experience. No, we are not talking about Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The Russo Brothers actually began preparing for this challenge 17 years ago on Community.
The brothers directed 34 episodes of the cult comedy. They learnt how to balance distinct personalities and intersecting storylines long before they entered the MCU. Anthony Russo explained why ensemble storytelling has always appealed to them (via The Washington Post):
For whatever reason, Joe and I have always really been drawn to ensemble storytelling. Maybe it speaks to the fact that we work as a team.
That instinct turned a community-college study group into the unlikely blueprint for Marvel’s biggest crossover yet.
Community Became the Russos’ Ensemble Storytelling Boot Camp
Their time on Community sharpened those ensemble instincts, but it did not create them. Joe Russo believes that instinct can be traced even further back to their childhood. He said in the same interview:
We were always interacting with a large amount of personality and interpersonal dynamics. I think that’s how we see the world and see stories.
The brothers grew up in a large Italian family filled with colorful personalities and complicated relationships. They later channeled that experience into 14 episodes of Arrested Development. The show was about the Bluth family, its grudges, schemes, and misunderstandings.
But Community allowed them to combine that character-driven comedy with much more ambitious genre storytelling. The Greendale study group could enter an action movie one week and a Western, conspiracy thriller, or mockumentary the next. Regardless of the format, the episode still had to remain rooted in the relationships between Jeff, Britta, Abed, Troy, Annie, Shirley, and Pierce.
The two-part Season 2 paintball finale best demonstrated that ability. They delivered cinematic action while preserving the jokes, rivalries, and character dynamics at the heart of the show. Kevin Feige’s admiration for those episodes helped the Russos secure Captain America: The Winter Soldier (via LA Times), easily one of the best MCU movies and best solo movie featuring Captain America.
Avengers: Doomsday Is the MCU’s Biggest Ensemble Experiment Yet
Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom in Avengers: Doomsday | Credits: Marvel Studios
The Russos applied those lessons to Captain America: Civil War, and later Infinity War and Endgame. But Doomsday dramatically increases the difficulty. This time, they must make characters from even separate continuities and decades of Marvel filmmaking (not just MCU) feel like they belong in the same story. In the same interview, Anthony described the MCU as an experiment in how far ensemble storytelling can expand. With Doomsday, the brothers are pushing that format further than they ever have before.
The challenge is not merely dividing screen time evenly. Infinity War succeeded partly because it placed heroes in unexpected combinations, including Thor with Rocket and Groot and Tony Stark and Spider-Man with Doctor Strange. Those relationships created humor and conflict while preventing the enormous cast from becoming unmanageable.
Doomsday, which reportedly features six different universes, must accomplish something similar. The Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men have different histories, personalities, and even approaches to heroism. Bringing them together will require more than impressive entrances and applause-generating cameos.
The Russos also do not see it as their responsibility to explain or repair the entire MCU after its recent struggles. Their focus is finding the specific points where these characters and franchises intersect. That is precisely what they practised on Community: placing colorful personalities together and ensuring every interaction contributes to the larger story.
Do you think the Russos can balance Doomsday’s massive cast? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Avengers: Doomsday hits theaters globally on December 18, 2026.
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