It looks like that dastardly Joss Whedon—best known for murdering fan-favorite characters like Hoban Washburne and Agent Phil Coulson—is finally loosening his tyrannical grip on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Badass Digest, he’ll be stepping down from directing Avengers movies after Age Of Ultron, and he’ll be replaced by Joe and Anthony Russo on the two-part Infinity War story—confirming a rumor we reported on back in November.
The Russo brothers previously directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which didn’t kill off any fan-favorite characters—except Agent Sitwell, but fuck him, he was working with Hydra—so that already makes them a step up from Whedon. Plus, they worked on Community and Arrested Development. Honestly, the worst part about this news seems to be that we can no longer make easy jokes about Whedon killing off fan-favorite characters. It’s like he killed off one last fan-favorite character!
The Russos are also directing the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, and Variety points out that they’ll have directed four Marvel movies by the time the two parts of Infinity War wrap up. That’s two more than both Joss Whedon and Jon Favreau directed, despite how much their movies shaped the Marvel Cinematic Universe. If anything, that proves how much faith the studio has in the Russos’ ability to hold onto the reins of its money-making machine. Variety also notes that, given how intense it will be—schedule wise—to shoot both Infinity War movies, the Russos probably won’t be directing anything but Marvel movies for a while. That includes a certain Ghostbusters sequel that’s being explicitly designed to cynically cash in on a certain demographic that can’t handle it when things aren’t catered exclusively to it.
As for Joss Whedon, his final Marvel movie—Avengers: Age Of Ultron—hits theaters in May. After that, he’ll finally be free to make a bunch of sequels to Serenity and then bring back Buffy. Or not.