It was Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke who first came up with the idea for Citadel and approached the directors of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the Russo Brothers, and their studio AGBO about its development in 2018. Despite some initial setbacks, the series eventually received the green light from Amazon, which later brought David Weil on as its showrunner.
The Russo Brothers’ approach to the Citadel universe is quite different from the one they used to conclude the Infinity Saga of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The latter blockbuster franchise benefited from a diverse slate of movies and comic book characters, marking an 11-year-long journey that began with Iron Man (2008) and ended with Endgame (2019). In contrast, the brotherly duo developed the Citadel universe at a much faster pace to meet the demands of the content-hungry streaming world.
While the original Citadel series turned out to be a critical mixed bag, it did, however, inspire Amazon to bankroll two more spinoffs: Citadel: Diana from Italy and India’s Citadel: Honey Bunny. In addition to these, two more Citadel entries are being planned, one of which may come from Mexico.
In his recent interview with Deadline, Anthony Russo talked about how the Citadel franchise came to fruition and how the collaborative nature of the work helped him turn Salke’s vision into reality.
“It really is dependent on picking the right partners to pull something off collaboratively. Some people are built for it and some people aren’t. If you align yourselves up properly, you can do remarkable things and move at speeds you couldn’t imagine. We love our Italian and Indian partners, and the work they did prior to this. We loved their work, they admired our work and we were very quickly able to establish rapport and a shared vision. It’s like we’re a bunch of jazz musicians passing music back and forth to one another as we’re playing and it’s an incredible thing.”
Matilda De Angelis’ Citadel: Diana debuted on October 10 and has received mixed reviews from critics so far. However, its critical reception is much better than that of the 2023 mothership series. As for Honey Bunny, it is on track to arrive on Prime Video on November 7. This upcoming Raj and DK creation stars Varun Dhawan as Bunny and Samantha Ruth Prabhu as Honey. Stay tuned for more updates.
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