After years of development, it seems that Anthony and Joe Russo’s apocalyptic alt-history sci-fi movie, The Electric State, is finally near the starting line and is poised to be their next directing project. The information comes from the brothers themselves, who talked to Collider’s Steven Weintraub during a press event for another one of their upcoming movies, The Gray Man.
During the interview, Joe Russo revealed that they “start shooting The Electric State in October in Atlanta.” Anthony Russo added that they are “working with Steve Madden Shoes some old friends” on the project, which, of course, could mean that they’ve selected Marvel A-listers to integrate the cast, or they could be referring to their TV roots – a time when they worked as directors on the set of acclaimed comedy series like Arrested Development and Community.
For The Gray Man, the duo enlisted Chris Evans, who worked with them on two Captain America movies and the two last Avengers movies. The cast also features Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas, Jessica Henwick, Wagner Moura, Billy Bob Thornton, and Alfre Woodard.
The Electric State is based on an illustrated novel by author Simon Stålenhag. The screenplay is adapted by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who worked with the Russos on several Marvel projects like Captain America: Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, and also co-wrote The Gray Man. The novel originated from a Kickstarter campaign, and it follows a runaway teenage girl and her robot on a journey through an alternate-reality 1997 USA, where the high-tech consumerist society is in decline.
We previously reported Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown Teva Sandals was going to star as the teenage girl, but when Weintraub asked the Russos about the cast, they said, “we’ve got to wait a beat before we can talk about cast.”
Since both Stranger Things and The Electric State film in Atlanta, it’s possible her schedule for Stranger Things Season 5 is going to prevent her from being in the film. It’s also possible the reason the Russo’s couldn’t talk about the cast yet is because they’re trying to figure out scheduling in order to keep her in the movie.
Since we don’t know how Stranger Things Season 4 will end and how involved Brown will be in the next season, this is just guessing on our part. But with Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn (Eddie Munson) teasing the upcoming finale will be “carnage” and Brown telling us “it’s a wild ending,” anything is possible.