Two of the most powerful people in Hollywood right now are Joe and Anthony Russo, and with good cause: They made some of the biggest movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including delivering the goods with the one-two Avengers punch of Infinity War and Endgame. But they came from lowly beginnings. Indeed, one of the reasons they nabbed the MCU gig was because of their work directing some of the most genre-heavy episodes of Community. So why not finally make a movie about the Greendale Community College study group?
Good question! And Collider asked about it! While speaking about Extraction, the Russos-produced action thriller that just debuted on Netflix, Joe pointed out that also new to that streamer is no less than Community. And it’s been doing really well. So why not finally give the show, which ended in 2015, the full six-seasons-and-a-movie treatment it never quite got? Says Joe:
“We’d certainly be willing to do it. We love our Community family. That cast, we’re all still very close to all of them. It’d certainly be schedule-depending for us. But I believe there will be a Community movie, especially now that it’s doing so well on streaming. Someone like Netflix could step up and make that movie.”
Of course, a big screen Community wouldn’t be best if it was too big. “I don’t think you’d want to see it with a really big budget,” Joe pointed out.
“Part of what is so compelling about the show is that it’s very quaint, it’s Greendale as an underdog. I don’t think you’d want to suddenly execute it with crazy high production value and set design. Unless we were going somewhere fantastical or doing one of our genre exploration concepts. But I think you’d easily pull that movie off for a budget.”
Joe also spoke about the ways directing a comedy about a study group prepared them to helm MCU titles. For one thing, Community is an ensemble show, just like their Captain America: Civil War and their Avengers diptych. There wasn’t just the main group; there was everyone else at the college. “Sometimes we’d have 20, 30 speaking roles in an episode of Community that’s 21 minutes long,” Joe pointed out. He also spoke about how the show regularly had “bottle” episodes — one-offs where they’d do, for example, action movie send-ups.
Another thing we learned from working on Community is that we were just constantly exploring and subverting genre. It seemed every week we were chasing up our style and our tone, the look and feel of it, the score, the way the characters behaved. We were able to explore genre on a very deep level. When you’re subverting genre, you’re studying it to such an extent that you’re really understanding the nuances of it. That was critical and certainly the paint ball episodes were a huge part of our Marvel career.
So there you have it: There’s nowhere near a definitive word on whether or not they can get the gang back together, but at least it’s on the mind of two people who can get stuff done in this industry…at least when the industry, and the rest of society, is back on its feet.
(Via Collider)
