Avengers: Endgame Encore just added four new scenes to a movie that already clocked in at three hours, and Marvel is calling the whole thing “critically important” homework before Doomsday drops in December. Is it though? Let’s talk.
The re-release hit theaters September 25 with roughly four minutes of fresh footage, a new opening from Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr., and four scenes that supposedly bridge Endgame to Doomsday. Scene one: Loki shows up at Steve and Peggy’s front door in a TVA jacket, interrupting their dance. He says he can help them. Steve looks shocked. Scene two: Bruce Banner is two miles underground in a bunker, working on a gamma serum, when Doctor Doom’s voice shows up to “collect” him.
Hulk roars. Green runes appear. Scene three: the TVA watches the multiverse collapse as thousands of incursions destroy universes. Earth-10005, the Fox X-Men universe, is firing missiles at another Earth. Scene four: that hammering sound from the original Endgame credits? It is now Doom forging his mask, mirroring Tony Stark building the Mark I back in 2008.
Joe Russo called the re-release “a critical companion story” and “setup for what you’re gonna watch.” The Russo brothers also said the new footage is set within the Doomsday story itself, not just bonus material. That sounds impressive until you realize one of those scenes, the TVA incursion sequence, is locked behind IMAX and Infinity Vision screenings only.
Standard ticket holders get three scenes. Premium buyers get four. Marvel did not exactly broadcast this division in the marketing, which feels like a pretty significant omission when you are asking people to pay theater prices for what they assume is the full experience.
Is this a blatant cash grab? Some reviews have called it exactly that, pointing out that standard screenings only get around two minutes of new footage while the premium formats get the full treatment. Others say Endgame remains the strongest finale the MCU ever produced, and seeing the Portals sequence with a crowd again is worth the price regardless.
The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The new footage is intriguing, sure, but it is also barely four minutes sprinkled across a three-hour movie you have already seen at least twice. One scene probably should have just been in Spider-Man: Brand New Day instead of awkwardly tacked onto Endgame like a post-it note.
The real question is whether any of this actually matters for Doomsday. The Loki scene suggests Steve’s time travel created an unstable branch that needs fixing. The Doom-Hulk scene implies Banner gets kidnapped and possibly mind-controlled.
The TVA scene confirms the multiverse is collapsing in real time. The mask-forging scene is basically a visual callback with no narrative weight. None of it is revolutionary. All of it is tease. Marvel knows you are going to see Doomsday anyway. This is just the appetizer tray, and they are charging full entree prices for it.
So should you go? If you love Endgame, the theatrical experience is still unbeatable. There is something about watching three hundred strangers lose their minds during the Portals scene that streaming simply cannot replicate. If you are only showing up for Doomsday clues, maybe wait for the Disney Plus drop. Your wallet will thank you, and your FOMO will survive.
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