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Director, writer, and producer Joe Russo may have moved on from the MCU, but that doesn’t mean he’s finished with the actors who helped make movies like Avengers: Endgame a success. While speaking with Collider about Extraction, which sees Russo wearing a producer hat while MCU alum Chris Hemsworth stars and former Endgame 2nd unit director Sam Hargrave helms, he also opened up about the upcoming drama Cherry. For Cherry, Russo once again co-directs with brother and creative partner, Anthony Russo, while Endgame‘s Tom Holland takes the lead as an Army medic suffering from PTSD who resorts to robbing banks in order to fund his drug addiction.

Holland’s Cherry character marks a significant break from the comfort zone he’s been operating in in recent years as he shelves his relatively peachy keen Peter Parker/Spider-Man persona and dives into the skin of a grittier character in far tougher circumstances. According to Russo, Holland is going to deliver big time in Cherry and it sounds like we should all be getting hyped for what he’s going to put up onscreen.

“I think he’s exceptional in the movie, honestly. I think it’s an Oscar-worthy performance out of him. He is shredding himself, physically and emotionally. This is a movie that spans decades and he is playing a very complicated individual who is a drug addict and suffering from PTSD and is a bank robber and in a failing relationship; it’s a very complicated role. I just think he’s exquisite in the part. He’s so compulsively watchable onscreen. When you’re playing a character that goes to that level of depravity, to have someone as inherently likable as Tom playing that character, so that you continue to root for them no matter what horrible choices they make, it’s invaluable. I think it really changes the entire presentation of the movie for an audience. I can’t say enough about it. I’m just really blown away by him in the film.”

Russo also gave some insightful updates about the post-production process on Cherry. He first began by explaining on how he and Anthony approach editing while filming in general. It’s an intriguing and enlightening bit of information both on its own and in regards to Cherry.

“We wrapped at the beginning of February. We’re very diligent about getting into the edit room every night after we shoot, while we’re shooting. We do that for two reasons. One is we want to process what we’ve been shooting and make sure that we like the tone, we like the direction the character’s moving in. But also, are we missing any story beats which is critically important that before you wrap, you can rewrite or reshoot, or add a day or two at the end to get a few essential pieces that you think are gonna help the story; we certainly did that on Cherry.”

From there, Russo shared some new information about how things are coming along with Cherry now that filming has wrapped. It sounds like the Russos and their Cherry team are in a fortunate place since they have the ability to continue working on the forthcoming feature while staying at home amidst the global coronavirus pandemic. Russo teased he and the team are approaching the finish line on Cherry, sharing,

“We were very advanced in the cut by the time we finished the movie. Pre-pandemic, we were able to get a lot of work done in the edit room, so we were pretty close to locking the picture by the time we all had to sequester. We spent some time with out editor on a secure link — he’s at his house with AVID and we can watch it on the screen and give him notes — but we’re pretty close on it. We’re gonna start sound-spotting and music-spotting [the week of April 27], getting into the score and sound design of it. The movie will be ready by the end of the summer. Question is, you know, what does the market look like moving forward? When can people go back to a movie theater? Will they be able to go back to a movie theater, for a year or two? We don’t know.”

Cherry is currently scheduled for release in 2020, but it’s possible that release date will change in the future. For more, check out our update release calendar on upcoming movies originally set for release in 2020 and beyond.

Finally, if you missed what Joe Russo said about a possible Community movie click here.