You don’t have to be a major cinephile to recognise the names Joe and Anthony Russo thanks to their work on four of Marvel’s biggest-ever films, including Avengers: Endgame – briefly the highest-grossing film of all time.
Often referred to simply as ‘the Russo brothers’, their entire careers have been publicly intertwined, working together first in sitcoms like Arrested Development before indie films and then linking up with Disney to make their names internationally.
But alongside that timeline, there’s also been another Russo building a profile in the industry – a Russo sister, Angela Russo-Otstot.
Russo-Otstot, 46, has had plenty of her own successes, selling a script to HBO in her early 20s – ‘quite atypical and a very fortunate place to start’ – before spending a decade as a TV writer-producer on shows like The Shield.
But what many may not realise is how influential she’s become in recent years.
After all, this is the woman who is producing the eagerly anticipated Avengers films, Doomsday and Secret Wars, alongside her siblings, thanks to her role as Chief Creative Officer at AGBO, the studio Joe and Anthony founded in 2017.
Or as Joe tells me later: ‘I mean, she really runs the company.’
Introducing Angela Russo-Otstot, leader of Russo brothers studio AGBO
Russo-Otstot has been more under the radar than her brothers, but this has shifted as she has taken charge at AGBO and stepped into a more visible job.
‘As the person who heads up the company, I am able to see everything through, whether it’s across film or series or gaming or animation,’ she tells me when we meet at the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews.
‘Because of that, I am out there, in production and beyond – releasing as well – and able to participate more.’
We’re talking in Scotland in April because Russo-Otstot and her brother Joe are here supporting the Sands International Film Festival, which AGBO co-founded as a major sponsor with the University of St Andrews after Joe’s daughter attended as a student.
Russo-Otstot is comfortable herself in this setting after teaching screenwriting and playwriting at two Cleveland-based universities, the family’s hometown, during a break from Hollywood to raise her kids. She describes it as ‘life-changing’.
‘In doing those courses, I really shifted my focus to championing other writers, and that prepared me very well for my time at ABGO, when I came back and started in the story department. Sometimes I wrote or developed on projects [including 2021 Tom Holland crime drama Cherry], but often I worked in partnership and mentorship of the writers that we had.’
Russo-Otstot focuses a lot on AGBO’s mentoring and passion for indie filmmaking during our conversation, which might seem surprising when the studio’s producing one of the biggest movies currently shooting (when we meet, her brothers are already filming Avengers: Doomsday in London, which is why I presume only Joe is able to get away).
But they walk the walk too.
It was such a strange request because I was a writer and not a traditionally trained executive
‘Anthony and Joe have always had a mentality of paying it forward because they were mentored by Steven Soderbergh when they were starting out.’
Award-winning filmmaker Soderbergh also came to Sands in 2024, while later that day Russo-Otstot and her brother will participate in a talk alongside filmmaker Frank E. Flowers, whose upcoming swashbuckler The Bluff, starring Priyanka Chopra, they have developed (thanks to another blossoming partnership, this time with Amazon).
She does admit she was baffled when her brothers initially asked her to work with them, however.
‘I thought it was such a strange request because I was a writer and not a traditionally trained executive, but to them that was exactly the point,’ she says. ‘They wanted a collection of artists working with executives that would shepherd other artists and really protect them throughout the development process especially – but also make sure that the creative was the driver first and foremost.’
AGBO’s partnership with Netflix and streaming
AGBO is at the forefront of major cinematic and streaming releases thanks to the work the three Russos have done for Netflix too.
The Gray Man, executive produced by Russo-Otstot and directed by her siblings, is one of the most watched films ever on Netflix with 139.3million views in its first 91 days, while she was also a producer on this year’s The Electric State.
When we’re meeting, The Electric State has not long been rinsed by critics and its rumoured budget of $320m (£234.3m) widely reported on (‘Not confirmed!’ Russo-Otstot interjects).
But she appears unfazed after telling me that ‘success for a streamer means something very different than theatrical’; she’s also a big fan of the power of day and date global releasing and how it allows everybody to engage ‘in a singular conversation around it’.
And as to the long-gestating Electric State specifically? ‘Look, that film is going to be an evergreen title. It’s a family film that will stay on platform, and so it will be returned to again and again over the years, which is wonderful and exciting.’
She’s also proud of the film’s ambition in bringing together live action and animation ‘in such a seamless manner’.
‘We had to work with a whole host of artists, hundreds and hundreds of them – human artists – who painstakingly brought those robots to life in such a beautiful and exciting manner. What was achieved in terms of the level of execution with visual effects in that film is quite a feat.’
It’s also far from a cheap feat.
‘I am very excited, though, to be back in the theatrical space with the Avengers, and there’s certainly a power of global connectivity with those films as well – they’ve also achieved that to a degree that perhaps no one else has.’
The Russo brothers return to Marvel – with AGBO
The Avengers films are the crown jewel in the Russo family’s portfolio, and these two upcoming movies are the first Marvels that AGBO will also produce.
It feels like ‘something that’s come full circle’ for her brothers, shares Otstot-Russo, and in terms of her being along for the ride, she continues: ‘It’s kind of lovely that they’re bringing what they’ve learned and developed and we’ve done together at AGBO over the last eight or nine years back to Marvel for this run.’
For brother Joe, 53 (Anthony is the oldest by 17 months, and their other sister, Gabriella Russo Rosalina, opted to follow in their father’s footsteps into law instead), Russo-Otstot is the best at ‘everything’.
‘You can collaborate with her on anything, and she’s always going to make it better, figure out the right path through it, how to creatively execute it, who the best partner and creative talent is for it. She really is, in my mind, one of the best executives in the business,’ he tells me ahead of their talk later.
You could argue their collaboration was foreshadowed when Russo-Otstot and their mother cooked meals for the cast and crew on the set of the Joe and Anthony’s first film, Pieces, in 1997 – but Russo says he never would even have dreamed at that moment where they’d all be in 2025.
‘We were just two kids from Cleveland who made a movie for very little money, using our uncle’s shop to film at and family and friends for the crew members. It’s been a very strange trajectory for us.’
He’s also relishing bringing the two major creative endeavours of his and Anthony’s career together, alongside their sister.
‘I love it because our two families are AGBO and Marvel and to bring them together, to me, is really fulfilling. And we have a lot of creative assets at AGBO, Marvel has a lot of creative assets… so we put the chocolate and the peanut butter together and we get something really special.’
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