After seven years marking the end of a cycle, Avengers: Endgame will return to theaters on September 25th. A practice that has become quite common in Hollywood, but with a little extra: unreleased images directly connected to the upcoming film, Avengers: Doomsday.
A re-release not coming empty-handed The information, mentioned during CinemaCon, was detailed by Joe Russo during an exchange at the Sands Film Festival, as reported by Deadline. The director talks about a “bridge” between the two films, but also about a kind of bonus content useful to understand what comes next. In other words, this version of Endgame serves not only to revisit the final showdown with Thanos: it also provides some clues for the future.
The project is quite obvious: capitalize on a film that (almost) everyone has already seen. With over $2.8 billion at the global box office, Endgame remains one of the biggest successes in history, just behind Avatar. Justifying the investment needed for a theatrical re-release. Joe Russo himself acknowledges that this is not a trivial operation.
It’s hard to talk about Endgame without mentioning Robert Downey Jr.. His character, Tony Stark, bid farewell there. However, the actor will indeed return to the Marvel universe, but not in the role expected as we now know.
In Doomsday, he will portray Dr. Doom, one of the greatest villains in the Marvel universe. A choice that may be surprising, but Joe Russo describes it as “very clever.” The idea began to take shape about two years ago, during discussions between the actor, Marvel, and Kevin Feige. The director recalls: “I was having dinner with him in New York, and he told me that he was thinking about a comeback, with the idea of embodying the ultimate villain. He was the ultimate hero, and now he’s going to become the ultimate villain. I found it to be a very smart idea.”
This return was not improvised. The Russo brothers reworked the narrative structure with writer Stephen McFeely to incorporate this shift. The goal was to maintain a certain coherence, while opening a new phase after the complete failure of the Kang arc. The re-release of Endgame therefore takes on a whole new dimension. It allows to reconnect the audience to these characters, while signaling a turning point. Marvel plays a fairly classic card here: remind what worked, while introducing elements to revitalize interest. And cash in at the box office once again, which doesn’t hurt.
[Context: Avengers: Endgame is being re-released with unreleased footage and connections to the upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday. The film’s success justifies the investment in this re-release.]
[Fact check: Robert Downey Jr. is set to play Dr. Doom in Avengers: Doomsday, a departure from his previous role as Iron Man/Tony Stark in Endgame.]
