Avengers: Doomsday Shot Without a Finished Script — and Joe Russo Says That’s the Point

Avengers: Doomsday Shot Without a Finished Script — and Joe Russo Says That’s the Point

When the Russo brothers started filming Avengers: Doomsday earlier this year, the screenplay still wasn’t finished. That’s the part that makes industry watchers nervous — and it’s exactly the part Joe Russo is leaning into.

In a recent interview with the Associated Press, the co-director framed the unfinished script not as a risk but as a working method: “We always view the script as a living organism.” The comment landed right as Doomsday hurtles toward its December 16, 2026 release, with Robert Downey Jr. returning as Doctor Doom and the MCU’s three distinct universes on a collision course.

The Russos — fresh off shepherding the biggest box office event in cinema history with Avengers: Endgame — described themselves as “improvisation-based, rehearsal-based directors.” Their process, they argued, depends on discovering what actors bring to characters in the room, sometimes weeks before shooting begins. “A lot of the time, that’s when the magic happens,” Joe said.

What makes the quote interesting isn’t just the admission — it’s the timing. James Gunn, who took over DC Studios after a decade of Marvel’s creative peaks and valleys, built his entire production philosophy around the opposite principle: no movie gets made until the script is locked. When he announced that DC had “killed a project” because the screenplay wasn’t ready, he framed it as a stark industry criticism: “I do believe that the reason why the movie industry is dying is not because of people not wanting to see movies. It’s not because of home screens getting so good. The number-one reason is because people are making movies without a finished screenplay.”

Now the Russos are effectively betting the opposite — and they’re betting on one of the most anticipated films of the decade.

The Marvel Script Problem, by the Numbers

Marvel has a long, well-documented history of starting production without finished scripts. Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame arrived after years of plotting, but the studio’s best-loved hits often emerged from looser processes. Guardians of the Galaxy — a surprise hit that redefined what comic book movies could be — was shot without a complete script, and that same looseness became part of its legend. But what works for a smaller, character-driven space opera doesn’t automatically scale to an Avengers film carrying the weight of an entire multi-year crossover storyline.

Doomsday is, by all accounts, a bigger bet than Endgame was. The official synopsis promises “beloved heroes from three distinct universes” facing “an existential threat unlike anything they’ve ever encountered.” That’s three timelines, multiple returning franchises, and a villain in Doctor Doom who has never been this central to the MCU before. The room for narrative friction is enormous. Robert Downey Jr.’s return as Doctor Doom — a character who in the comics is often more brilliant than evil — sets up a moral complexity that a lockstep script might flatten and an unfinished one might never resolve.

Chris Evans returns as Steve Rogers. Chris Hemsworth is back as Thor. Pedro Pascal steps into the Mister Fantastic role. Paul Rudd, Anthony Mackie, Florence Pugh, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Channing Tatum, Simu Liu, Ian McKellen, Hayley Atwell, Tom Hiddleston — the cast list reads like a roll call of the last fifteen years of Marvel Studios hits. The logistical challenge of getting that many moving parts to land on a single coherent third act is not small, and the Russos’ defense suggests they’re comfortable writing toward that landing in real time.

Gunn’s Clean-Break Philosophy

When James Gunn took over DC, he made script readiness a public pillar of his approach. His argument wasn’t just about quality control — it was about respect for the audience and the people making the film. “Everybody wanted to make the movie. It was greenlit, ready to go. The screenplay wasn’t ready. And I couldn’t do a movie where the screenplay’s not good,” he told Rolling Stone last year.

That stance has shaped DC’s output so far. The studio’s recent films have been smaller in scale than Marvel’s crossover events, and the tighter script discipline has arguably shown in their reception — though “discipline” and “box office success” have never had a perfectly clean relationship in the superhero era.

What’s striking about the Russos’ counter-argument is that it doesn’t deny the risk. They’re not saying unfinished scripts always work. They’re saying their specific directorial method — rehearsal-heavy, actor-responsive, improvisational — depends on leaving room to find the movie in the room rather than on the page. Whether that method survives contact with a project this size is the real question Doomsday will answer in December.

Why This Debate Matters Outside Marvel

The Russo-versus-Gunn split isn’t just a Marvel-DC rivalry talking point. It’s a live methodological argument about how big-budget filmmaking should work, and it’s playing out in real time on two of the biggest franchises in the world.

For moviegoers, the practical stakes are simple: does Doomsday feel coherent, or does it feel like a film that was still being written during principal photography? The audience will have the answer before the industry does. If the film lands, the Russos’ approach gets a major endorsement at the highest level. If it fractures under its own scope, Gunn’s warnings start looking prophetic and the pressure shifts back toward script-lock discipline across the board.

Either way, December 16 is going to be a revealing day for how Hollywood thinks about the relationship between preparation and discovery — and whether the Avengers, of all properties, are the right test case for finding the movie in the room.

Where It All Began

The Russos’ sensibility didn’t emerge from nowhere. Before Endgame, they made their name with Captain America: Civil War — a film that proved crossover-scale storytelling could work when it grew out of character rather than spectacle. That same instinct — story first, stars second — informed everything that followed, including the sprawling multiverse play of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, where Sam Raimi’s direction leaned into the same improvisational voltage the Russos are now betting on for Doomsday.

If that reads as faith in process over planning, that’s intentional. The question is whether faith scales to a story this large — and whether audiences will forgive the visible seams if the emotional throughline holds.

What do you think — is shooting without a finished script creative freedom or a red flag? Would you rather filmmakers lock the screenplay before production or leave room to improvise?