Joe Russo, one half of the directing team behind Avengers: Endgame, recently had a talk with Google (see above) about his career and his hit Marvel Cinematic Universe film. During the audience Q&A, one person compared Avengers: Endgame’s success to the backlash of Game of Thrones‘ final season, and wanted to know where the Russos went right.
“Obviously Endgame was an amazing movie,” the audience member began. “The culmination of a ten-year storyline that either met or exceeded the wildest expectations that we had. There’s another series that just recently finished, Game of Thrones, which actually followed a very different path… did not meet any expectations-“
“That’s your opinion,” Russo interjected. “I just want to make that clear. That is not my opinion.”
“Where do you think you went right with the Avengers storyline and where did Game of Thrones go wrong?” they asked.
“This is like 20,000 headlines for the next three weeks if I answer this question,” Russo joked.
“Look, it’s interesting being an artist in today’s world with social media because it’s an unprecedented level of ownership that the viewer feels over the material. When I grew up, Ernest Hemingway wanted to write a book, he wrote a book and you read and went ‘that’s great’ and ‘amazing’ and ‘thank you, Ernest Hemingway, for writing an incredible piece of literature.’ You’re very grateful for it. Today, rightly or wrongly, there is an intense amount of ownership and opinion, and opinions fly fast and furious. I’ve learned this about social media, that there’s a minority of opinions that are very loud, and they tend to drive the media cycle in a way where it’s not healthy because you’re not getting a true sampling of everyone’s opinion.”
He added, “It takes energy to go online and bitch about something, you know, and not all of us have that energy or care to do it. You know, it’s also a little bit of narcissism that’s involved with getting online to complain about something, so you have to have the combination of those things in order to do that and I don’t think that’s evocative of a large segment of society. I’m sorry, I’m not answering your question directly. I’m trying to give you a version of an answer.”
However, Russo did conclude with his own opinion about the final Game of Thrones season:
“They made the choices that they wanted to make with that show and people felt, what I think that they felt, was that they didn’t feel it was seeded properly throughout the series,” he shared. “I loved all the choices. I thought they were crazy and unexpected, and that’s what I want out of a narrative, but I see where people feel like they were upset.”
“I’m glad we didn’t get as beat up,” he added with a laugh.
Avengers: Endgame and all eight seasons of Game of Thrones are available for home viewing.
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