The Russo brothers nearly directed Kevin Feige's Star Wars movie

Directing duo the Russo brothers and MCU boss Kevin Feige may have collaborated on some of the most successful movies of all time with the Avengers series, but they almost had a go at another franchise: Star Wars. 

"We love Star Wars. There were early conversations, there were some early conversations with us," Joe Russo told the Smartless podcast. "Kevin Feige is a huge Star Wars fan, and there were some early conversations about maybe teaming up with Kevin to do Star Wars."

Feige, who's been president of Marvel Studios since 2007, has long been reported to be producing a Star Wars movie, but the film is now apparently no longer in active development. Lucasfilm boss Kathleen Kennedy has gone on to say that nothing at all was in the works with Feige: "I would love to see what movie he might come up with," she said. "But right now, no, there isn't anything specifically."

As for the Russos, they've directed four movies with Feige producing: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. Most recently, they were executive producers on the Prime Video spy drama Citadel, starring Richard Madden and Priyanka Chopra Jonas.

Despite Feige's Star Wars movie now seeming like a dead end, there are still plenty more big-screen projects in the works at Lucasfilm. It was announced at this year's Star Wars Celebration that a new movie about Daisy Ridley's Rey was in the works, and there are also movies from James Mangold, Taika Waititi, and Shawn Levy in development. 

Next up from the galaxy far, far away is Star Wars: Visions season 2, which arrives on Disney Plus today. For more on the series of animated shorts, check out our interview with Aardman director Magdalena Osinska.