Russo Brothers Explain Why They're Not Surprised Spider-Man Is Out of the MCU

While those of us on the outside of the film industry were shocked to hear of the deal between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios dissolving, which effectively removed Spider-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some filmmakers were not as surprised about the news.

Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo recently sat down with The Daily Beast, where they explained that they knew that the separation was likely considering how difficult it was for the companies to make the deal in the first place.

The Russo brothers brought Spider-Man (Tom Holland) into the MCU in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. "We were extremely passionate about it," Anthony said. "This is something we really wanted to happen, and fought a long time internally at Marvel to make it happen."

"It wasn’t easy," Joe added. "[Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige] went through a lot."

They went on to paint a picture of the production process. “There were a lot of ups and downs," Joe continued, "and [Feige] kept walking into our office and we’d go, ‘Look, we’ve got to do it with [Sony],’ and he’d go, ‘OK, I’ll figure it out,’ and walk back into his. He was looking for the way out. He wanted to open that door and have us go, ‘We figured it out! We don’t need Spider-Man!’ because it’s a lot of work to get two major corporations to play nice with each other, and the fact that it happened at all, we should all be dancing and celebrating that we got that little bit of time."