Taking the phrase “go with your instinct” to a whole new level, Anthony and Joe Russo chose the location of their office because of its proximity to the pasta. Once accustomed to Los Angeles-based chef Steve Samson’s late Westside Sotto outpost, the duo got an early invitation to their Italian follow-up, Rossoblu, in 2017, the same year they launched their production flag, AGBO.
“As we dined inside this half-finished restaurant, we asked him about the rest of the space,” recalls Joe of his first visit to the sparsely populated development of downtown LA’s fashion district. Five years later, the Cleveland-born brothers ’business, with more than 40 employees, occupies two buildings in the complex with a total of more than 30,000 square feet. There, more than 10 miles from major Hollywood centers, Marvel’s frequent contributors have editing rooms, projection rooms, and a motion capture stage. They even have plans for the brothers ’favorite Georgia brewery, Creature Comforts, to open an operation on the ground floor. There was talk of hosting community events, outdoor screenings and concerts, as well as the installation of a theater group in the office space. Anthony says, “Why we really came here is that you have more of an arts presence than you do for the movies.”
The Russians are no strangers to exponential growth. Moving from independent film (Welcome to Collinwood) to network television (Happy Endings, Arrested Development) to the higher levels of the Marvel film universe (Captain America, two sequels to The Avengers), the billion directors are now using his cachet and cash for support projects ranging from the A24 Everything Everywhere All at Once to his latest directing effort, the Netflix thriller The Gray Man, which will hit the streamer on July 22 after ‘a theatrical bow of July 15th. (Japanese video game publisher Nexon acquired a 38 percent stake in AGBO in January for $ 400 million, with a then reported valuation of $ 1.1 billion.)
Sitting in the area called “Brother’s Zone,” the room that connects their two offices, in June, the filmmakers offered their views on Netflix’s recent issues, Disney’s new agenda and the “youth conversation.” around Marvel’s theatrical success.
What was the journey to do The Gray Man?
JOE RUSSO One thing Steven Soderbergh taught us — he was our mentor very early in our career — was, “One for you. One for them.” You have to figure out how to make money from people. Once you do, you can make some swings. AGBO is really based on this concept. We started developing The Gray Man while we were doing Winter Soldier, not knowing if we would continue working with Marvel. We did four Marvel movies. Once we got to the other side, we took out the Sony project [where it had gone unproduced since 2014].
“Winter Soldier is an anti-government film,” says Joe Russo, photographed June 22 at AGBO’s Los Angeles office. “It’s a film about defending what you think is right versus having a government agency tell you what you think is right. That’s an explosive message in certain parts of the world, and fans told us.” Photo by Birdie Thompson
The film will be released in theaters before playback. Was this important to you?
ANTHONY RUSSO This is a great cinema. We did it for a theater. This is how we shot it, how we designed it and, technically, how we supported it. But we like working with new partners. There is something very energetic about making a movie like this with Netflix. They think of ways to reach the audience differently.
JOE It’s easier to work with them than a traditional studio.
How is it?
JOE His mindset is more the mindset of a tech company than a studio. They are very hands-free. Nobody bothers you. They have a different approach to how they control the budget of the film. It’s not as stressful as in a studio. There are many positive aspects to working with them. And I would say that I think digital distribution has fostered more diversity in the last five years than Hollywood by a hundred. Because they have regional support, they need to foster connection and talent in these regional markets. Of course, everything is always driven by money, but this is an important byproduct of a company like Netflix. Anthony and I are quite disciplined in being agnostic about the presentation. The extraction was seen 100 million times [on Netflix]. That’s the equivalent of a $ 2 billion movie in theaters.
When we worked with Marvel, we traveled the world for a decade. What allows you is an understanding that goes beyond a Hollywood-centered view of how to create content. We are agnostic about delivery. You know what can make everyone happy is that Netflix is starting to make 45-day windows and they have their giant digital distribution platform. Everyone wins. That seems to be where it’s going.
The name AGBO comes from the university years of the Russians. They were throwing a comedy show and wanted to write a fake review in the student newspaper for “lacerating” it as a way to pique interest. “We needed a name to attribute this review to, so we went through Cleveland’s phone book and just found Gozie Agbo,” recalls Anthony Russo, here, photographed June 22 at AGBO’s Los Angeles office. Angeles. Photo by Birdie Thompson
ANTHONY We have designed ABGO so that it is completely independent so that things evolve and change, we can take any project anywhere and anytime. We have no investment in any of these models.
With the problems Netflix suffers right now, are there implications for the larger industry?
The Russians’ extensive DTLA complex includes artifacts from the history of cinema (at the entrance hang celluloid strips with backlighting of famous films) Photographed by Birdie Thompson
JOE, I don’t think so. They still make billions of dollars. By the way, it is good that a company that was full of cash during the boom in technology specifications is now challenged to reconsider its model. And at some point, they need to start moving toward what we’re doing: a bigger IP that can be turned into games and merchandising to generate ancillary revenue and generate inherited wealth. This is taking a page out of the Disney book. But I also think Disney has become very conservative. Post-[Bob] Iger, it looks like they are in IP management mode. You’ll get all the Star Wars and all the Marvel you can handle over the next decade. They are all changing. Either it’s a reinforced conservative approach from your traditional studios or it’s forcing a tech company like Netflix to rethink its entire model.
The Russians’ extensive DTLA complex includes artifacts from his career (see the script for the first feature film of 2002 Welcome to Collinwood) Photographed by Birdie Thompson
ANTHONY There is so much content spread across so many creators and vendors that it almost doesn’t matter. If one part of the model weakens, there are other parts of the model. [Top Gun: Maverick] is ready and waiting to benefit.
JOE One thing we’ve never seen before in this business is Apple and Amazon, which are two trillion-dollar companies so rich that their investment in entertainment is a rounding mistake. You’ve had traditional corporations looking for strategic alliances, like Sony. But these were not companies that had unlimited funds. [With them] you will probably see the biggest change, but they go slowly. Netflix’s survival depends on how much content it produces. Apple and Amazon want to improve the brand without damaging the brand.
AGBO is behind Everything Everywhere All at Once. Have you funded in addition to producing?
JOE We were the seed capital. I fell in love [Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s 2016] Man of the Swiss army. Part of what AGBO does, outside of the giant IP, is pay off the karmic debt we have in the universe. It’s highly experimental and has a level of absurdity coupled with the emotion I hadn’t seen in a long time. We thought that if we helped them calibrate it for a slightly wider audience, there could be something really explosive.
ANTHONY Not many people could have gotten this movie through the system the way we did. Basically, Joe and I believe, and that goes back to our first conversations with the Daniels, that there could be a movie model for them that had a slightly more commercial dimension.
JOE The Daniels are very disciplined filmmakers. They were able to pull off the film with the kind of budget that I don’t even think Anthony and I, with 30 years in the business, could figure out how to run.
What do you want the industry to take away from the success of Everything Everywhere?
ANTHONY His adventure.
JOE The miracle of Everything Everywhere All at Once is that they spent five years working on that film and it’s very inventive, a very personal expression and a really interesting use of the two-hour narrative format. But shit, there aren’t many left. It’s not an easy kind of movie to make. We make movies like The Gray Man so we can help the Daniels do it all over all at once. The way Soderbergh did Ocean’s 11 so he could help us make Welcome to Collinwood. You can use business-centric content to support more personal projects.
Funko dolls made in his likeness: “Mine looks exactly like JJ Abrams,” Anthony says. “And mine looks like Joe Pesci,” Joe adds. Photo of Birdie …