Joe and Anthony Russo loved all kinds of movies growing up — the blockbusters of the 1970s and ’80s, the obscure foreign films they’d see at Cleveland Cinematheque, the ones they’d watch on the late show with their father.

That diversity is reflected in the brothers’ work, which includes from some of the top-grossing films of all time (“Avengers: Endgame,” “Avengers: Infinity War”) as well as directing acclaimed television comedies (“Arrested Development,” “Community”) and a first theatrical release (“Welcome to Collinwood”) that was inspired by the 1958 Italian film “Big Deal on Madonna Street.”

That approach continues with “Cherry,” which debuts Friday in select theaters (the closest is the Cedar-Lee in Cleveland Heights) and March 12 on Apple TV+.

It’s based on the 2018 novel of the same name about a Clevelander who joins the Army, becomes a drug addict to deal with his post-traumatic stress disorder and then becomes a bank robber to pay for his addiction. It was written by Nico Walker, a Cleveland native who wrote the book while in prison after joining the Army, becoming a drug addict to deal with his PTSD and robbing 10 Cleveland-area banks before his arrest.

The book appealed to the brothers on a personal level.

“We have people very close to us in Cleveland, family members who are struggling with addiction, others who have died from addiction,” Joe said during an online, small-group interview. “Nico’s book was challenging, difficult, beautifully written, really unique voice, very unique to Cleveland, and we identified with it. He grew up in the same area we grew up, ran in the same neighborhoods we ran in, so we knew everything he was talking about in the book and understood it visually and understood the psychology behind it.”

“Cherry” was a hot literary property when it was released, and the Russos emphasized their connections to the work when trying to acquire the rights.

“We responded very personally to the book,” Anthony said. “I don’t know if anyone pursuing the book at the time had as deep and as passionate of a personal connection to the essence of the story.”

“Cherry” also allowed the Russos to come home — literally. They didn’t just shoot in Cleveland, they shot some scenes at La Dolce Vida, the Little Italy restaurant where both Joe Russo and Nico Walker had worked, and even on East 127th Street / Woodland Avenue, the street where the Russos lived for the first decade of their lives.

“Shooting on the street where we grew up was a pretty remarkable and profound experience,” Anthony said. “Joe and I are obviously very visually oriented people. The details of that street, of the East Side of Cleveland, of the city in general, the texture of the city’s always been very meaningful to us … To be able to use those associations we have with the city and tell a story that can be accessed by people around the world, it’s a unique opportunity.”

Tom Holland, who played Peter Parker / Spider-Man for the Russo brothers in the Avengers films, plays the title character, and Ciara Bravo plays Cherry’s girlfriend and then wife Emily, who also becomes an addict.

The Russos financed the movie independently and shot it in Cleveland before the pandemic.

“Even though we were coming off ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ when you want to make a movie about PTSD and drug addiction, it’s not the kind of subject matter that movie financiers come running at,” Anthony said. “We knew it was a difficult film to make and we wanted to make it how we wanted.”

What they wanted to make essentially was five films. “Cherry” is divided into five chapters, each with its own style and tone. The first is a love story as Cherry and Emily meet in 2002.

The second focuses on Cherry’s impulsive decision to join the Army after the couple breaks up, and the surreal experience of basic training (complete with a prostate’s eye-view camera shot of a rectal exam).

The third section graphically depicts the horrors of war in Iraq, while the fourth shows the traumatic impact of war and the spiral of addiction. The final scenes focus on the culmination of those choices and experiences.

“Parts of the movie are very dark and difficult, but we didn’t want to shy away from those parts of the film,” Joe said. “We didn’t want to sugarcoat them, we didn’t want to romanticize them. We wanted to portray a stark reality in terms of the brutality that violence can bring to the human experience and the brutality that drug addiction can being to the human experience. We wanted to be unflinching in how we approached that.”

At the same time, they needed to give the audience some comedic relief, a break from the brutality. Anthony compared them to alchemists trying to find the perfect formula to make those disparate elements blend together.

“Joe and I have always been fans of balance in filmmaking, movies that give you the entire range of human experience in a single film,” he said.

While the duo didn’t have to worry about COVID-19 during production, its effects were in full swing when it came time to find a distributor for the film.

“The options for theatrical distribution at that time, as they remain now, were extremely limited,” Anthony said. “Apple responded the most passionately. Apple just seemed to really love the movie. You want to partner with the people where you’re feeling the most love from.”

The brothers are in pre-production on “The Gray Man,” a thriller starring Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans that they are making for another streaming service (Netflix). But the Russos still have confidence in the theatrical experience, and Anthony cited the three-day box office record set in China earlier this month as an example of its endurance.

“The audiences have come back, and they’ve come back with a vengeance,” Anthony said. “We expect that’s going to happen in the United States and elsewhere around the world as soon as we’re able to do that safely. Theatrical distribution will remain viable and vibrant and growing, but the fact that streamers are available for those movies that may not fit the theatrical distribution model, it’s an amazing thing.”