If it feels like Joe and Anthony Russo — better known as a pair, the Russo brothers — have created a universe unto themselves at this point, you're not wrong. In fact, they even compared their post-Marvel ambitions to forming a Star Wars type franchise of their own.

The quote came up in an exclusive interview the famous filmmaking brother team gave to GamesRadar magazine, when they were asked about their rumored recent meeting with Kevin Feige about making a Star Wars movie.

“The intention is that we want to build our own Star Wars,” Joe explained. “For us, it's all about the focus on original storytelling and new ideas.”

“If anything, there’s been too much,” he continued. “I mean, I think you could argue we're in a rut of repetitive storytelling and potential franchise abuse.”

Joe added, “So, at a certain point, I think the audience is craving new ideas and new stories. And that's where all of our focus is going post-Marvel – asking ‘what are those new stories?' Barbie and Oppenheimer showed the appetite out there – audiences want something different.”

That was pretty big news given that the Russo brothers are responsible for directing some of the biggest MCU blockbusters of all time, such as 2019's Avengers: Endgame.

But if anyone's in a position right now to negotiate for creating original content (in a media landscape that is becoming more and more driven by pre-established intellectual property), it's the Russo brothers.

They are banking on their cache as filmmakers as leverage to try to add some fresh ideas to the Hollywood assembly line.

“We have really focused on a lot of original stories that we've been developing over the past several years with writers [Christopher] Markus and [Stephen] McFeely, and our wider group of collaborators at AGBO,” said Anthony. AGBO is the independent production company the Russo brothers started in 2017.

“So, we are very excited over the next several years to start to be able to execute things like The Electric State,” added Anthony. “We've made a big focus to shift into generating our own material.”

The Electric State is an upcoming sci-fi/adventure adaptation of a graphic novel of the same name coming this year to Netflix. In recent years the Russo brothers have also directed the Tom Holland drama Cherry, the espionage thriller show Citadel, and the action film The Gray Man starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.

A Gray Man sequel is currently in the works. “We're developing concepts we think are the right direction to take the character in and so, we are working on that at the moment,” says Joe. “I mean, you're juggling like 14 things at the same time so you have to apportion your time correctly to each one of them.”

Just as Star Wars commands an entire collaborative department these days at Disney, so too is it a full-team effort at AGBO to oversee so many projects at the same time. “But that’s part of the benefit of having our own company now,” explains Anthony, “which is filled with really important collaborators that we've been working with for many years, and that's the only way we're able to sustain this level of work.”

“We always joke there's not two Russo brothers, there's like 14,” he added.

So for those looking for the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe Russo, to direct a tentpole franchise like Star Wars, think again — sounds like they've had their share of IP franchises and are looking forward to hopefully making new universes out of their own original creations for a while.