If anything could have gotten fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe even more excited for upcoming Marvel movies, it was the reveal that the Russo Brothers will be back to direct the next two Avengers films just as they did Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame, two of the highest grossing movies of all-time. A lot about the next two movies will mirror the structure of the previous Avengers films, but one thing that apparently won’t will be the shooting schedule.
Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars are scheduled to be released a year apart, just as Infinity War and Endgame were. However, speaking with Collider the Russo Brothers revealed that the movies aren’t planned to be filmed back-to-back the way the previous Avengers films were. According to Joe Russo...
It'll be similar, but we'll have a larger break in between the two movies than we did. I think it was four weeks maybe? Was it four weeks between Infinity War and Endgame?
When multiple sequels get the greenlight at the same time, it’s far from uncommon for them to get filmed together. It happened previously with sequels to Back to the Future, The Matrix, and Pirates of the Caribbean. Sometimes the two films will get filmed one after the other with little or no break. Sometimes the movies will get filmed at the same time, with scenes from both movies sometimes being shot on the same day.
The former situation was the case for the last two Avengers movies, with there being only a small break between the two movies. The Russo's have previously indicated they didn't love the Avengers shooting schedule. The reason for the change may simply have been because the directors didn't want to go through that again.
Exactly when the two new Avengers movies will be filmed is unclear. Anthony Russo indicates that the break between shooting them won’t be very long, but the break will be significantly longer this time around. He explained...
I think it was a couple of weeks. But no, these are not as separated as you would normally separate two films of this scale, but they're more substantially separated [than Infinity War and Endgame] by a year or so.
The back-to-back filming meant that principal photography on Endgame was done a long time before it traditionally would have been completed, so it seems the plan for these two films is for each one to be filmed on its own. Shooting on major tentpoles with major post-production is usually completed around a year before release, so with the two movies coming out a year apart, it seems filming will be separated like that as well.
The reason may simply be one of storytelling as much as anything else. Infinity War and Endgame were two movies telling a single story, and while Doomsday and Secret Wars might be doing the same thing, that’s far from clear. While Secret Wars will likely be strongly inspired by the Marvel comics of the same name, exactly what Avengers: Doomsday will be about, beyond that it will include the return of Robert Downey Jr. to the MCU, is more of a mystery. The two movies may be more self-contained stories, making it easier for them to be filmed separately.
