Of the many movies we’re all looking forward to taking in with 2016 just underway, very few have the clout of Captain America: Civil War. In fact, only Rogue One and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice are even worth discussing in relation to the movie at this point, in terms of sheer fanbase and anticipation levels. So, it’s not surprising that after Collider’s IMAX screening of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, one of the MCU’s most durable volumes, our very own Steven Weintraub dug right into where directors Joe and Anthony Russo are in the editing process for Civil War, and how things are going in pre-production for the two-part Avengers: Infinity War saga. We’ll have a video of the entire interview up as soon as possible.

After fielding small anecdotes about having Robert Redford cook salmon for them when they first met the Hollywood legend, and getting hung up on where Captain America (Chris Evans) would store his shield in his modest apartment, the Russos got right into discussing Civil War. They began with comparing Civil War to Winter Soldier in terms of tone and narrative, with the brothers calling Civil War more of a “psychological thriller” than the political thriller that The Winter Soldier was so often cast as. Here’s what they had to say:

“Of course, Winter Soldier was a political thriller. We think of Civil War as a psychological thriller. It’s a complicated movie. And yes, it divides these people that you’ve known to not only be a team, but Cap and Natasha, in this movie, they’re evolving into a surrogate family for each other. So, it’s a closer group of people that’s being divided. That’s a difficult thing to do.” “There’s a good portion of [Civil War] that’s actually funnier than Winter Soldier, because there are characters in that film, that come from worlds where the tone is more comedic. Not all the characters in that movie have the same history as the Avengers. They’re coming at the problem of the film, not embedded with that baggage.” “They’re not tied to the central arc of the movie with the same motivation as the other characters, so they can be lighter. I think there are a lot lighter moments because there are much darker moments as well. We did have to work very hard at that.”

They went on to discuss where Spider-Man fits into the action, and what was important to them as far as reinventing the character. They began by discussing how they came to get permission to bring Spidey into Civil War. Here’s what they had to say:

“It was a very long process. Kind of thing we had to lobby for for months. What happens during a long process like that, you’re continuing to develop the movie and the character. During the time that it takes you to convince the powers that be to make the jump and let you do that, you’ve engrained the character so deeply into the story at that point that you’d have to destroy the story to take him out. So, by the time we found out that he’d be in the movie, it wasn’t so much elation than like ‘Thank God! We don’t have to blow the whole movie up.'” “I’m a comic book fan and collector, since I was a kid, and he’s my favorite character. And to get a chance to reinvent that character…For me, I really wanted to see somebody cast who was very close to a high schooler’s age…What was so valuable to me about the character, when I was a kid, is that he’s a high schooler with this power and responsibility, and it makes him very distinct as a hero. It makes him distinct from the other characters in the Marvel Universe, who are confident, experienced superheroes. It’s super important to have that color of the movie, and we felt that it was invaluable and we do think it goes a long way. That character helps us balance out the tone of the movie.”

Next, they touched on where they are in the editing process and how far they are from finishing the film:

“The next month is the hardest part of the editing process cause we’re right at the point where we’re…I’d say in about a month from now, we’ll be what we call ‘locking picture.’ So the movie will be set in stone at that point. We’ll still have visual effects to work on for another six weeks or so after that point.” “This has been the easiest post process we’ve ever had on a film. We’re very happy with how the movie was. Everyone is very happy with where the movie was. For us, the tricky thing is the effects because it’s a very complicated movie and there are some really big sequences in the film. The effects are on a much larger scale than the work we did on Winter Soldier. That’s the part that becomes really difficult because you don’t have a lot of time and everyone has very high standards. So everyone starts killing themselves at this point. We’re finishing up the music – Henry Jackman is back to score and we’re really happy with the score. He leaves for London in two weeks and we do a few reshoots next week…we’ll be done with the movie in 2 and a half months.”

From there they gave some early updates on where they are in pre-production on the monolith that is Avengers: Infinity War, the two-part culmination of everything that’s happened in the MCU since Iron Man first put on his suit. They were brief but stressed the tremendous scope of the films – “Thanos has a very large agenda,” as they said. Here’s what they said about scope of the film and the shooting schedule:

“We were being figurative when we said [67 characters] and people took it as literal but there’s a lot of characters. Infinity War is meant to be the culmination of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe up to that point. It’s very ambitious in its scope, it wants to take everythign that you’ve seen before and coalesce into some kinda of climactic ending. It’s complicated , ambitious storytelling…We’re not talking about lead characters, just people that make an appearance.” “We start shooting both of them later this year in November and we’re primarily going to be based in Atlanta again. That’s where we’ll do out stage work and some exteriors. There will be locations from around the world involved as well. We actually relocate to Atlanta in late July to finish up pre-production there. We don’t come back to L.A. until the following June.” “We’re shooting them concurrently, meaning that some days we’ll be shooting the first movie and some days we’ll be shooting the second movie. Just jumping back and forth. We won’t look like this next year.”

And here’s what they said about where they are on writing with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely:

“We have two excellent outlines from Markus and McFeely. They just went off and started writing the first draft of the first movie.”

Beyond that, they confirmed that they will be shooting the entire Infinity War on IMAX cameras, and that they will be working with their regular DP, Trent Opaloch, on both films. And when asked about appearances by any of the Marvel characters from Netflix’s series, they simply said that “anything is possible in Marvel,” which would qualify as the understatement of the decade.