'Avengers: Infinity War' director has a theory about why people love Netflix shows: They are less predictable than movies

Marvel Studios

• Joe Russo, co-director of "Avengers: Infinity War," told Variety that Netflix's way of dropping content makes it less predictable than movies.
• Russo argued that "every average moviegoer has a level of sophistication in their ability to predict what is going to happen in a movie."
• The Russo Brothers spent a lot of time misdirecting audiences leading up to the release of "Infinity War."
• However, Russo also said that audiences are attracted to Netflix and Marvel because they crave "new kinds of storytelling."

The co-director of "Avengers: Infinity" has a theory for why people love the way Netflix releases shows: It makes them less predictable than movies.

The Russo Brothers, the directors of "Infinity War," went to great lengths to misdirect audiences leading up to the movie's release because it would have been too easy to predict otherwise.

Russo told Variety that Netflix dropping an entire season of a show one day attracts audiences because it is a "new version of a long-form narrative" that they consume on their own time, and that system makes Netflix content harder to predict.

"It's another way to digest content, and that structure is less predictive to them," Russo said. "We have seen so much content that every average moviegoer has a level of sophistication in their ability to predict what is going to happen in a movie, which is why Anthony and I spent a lot of time trying to hide the secrets of ['Avengers: Infinity War'], misdirect the way the trailers were cut, misdirect with information. It's too easy for them to intuit what is going to happen."

For instance, "Infinity War" trailers teased the Hulk fighting alongside the other Avengers in Wakanda in trailers, and that doesn't happen in the movie.

Russo also thinks, though, that the popularity of Netflix and Marvel "is really a function of audiences craving new kinds of storytelling."

"I think we had a really nice run for 100 years of two-hour, two-dimensional storytelling, but I think over the next decade, decade-and-a-half, you're going to see a radical shift in how stories are told," Russo told Variety.

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• How 'Infinity War' and 'The Last Jedi' shatter fan expectations
• The sad ending of 'Infinity War' has inspired a hilarious meme
• The 5 confirmed MCU movies after 'Infinity War'
• How the MCU could change after 'Infinity War'