Four Reasons Marvel Brought Avengers: Endgame Back to Theaters Before Doomsday

Marvel Studios and the Russo brothers announced that Avengers: Endgame would return to theaters in September 2026. The way they teased it struck me as genius, and I think the move was necessary for Avengers: Doomsday. As I see it, there were four main reasons Marvel did this, and I thought it was very well executed.

Reason one: Endgame had a shot at taking the box office record back from Avatar

Avengers: Endgame was the highest grossing movie of all time until Avatar re-released in theaters. Many people thought that was cheap. Endgame never got a re-release or the extra boost in money that comes with one. Avatar did, and that is how it reclaimed the title of the highest grossing movie of all time.

At the time of the announcement, Avatar stood at $2.92 billion and Endgame at $2.79 billion. I did the math on my phone, and it's close. By my count, 124 million dollars was all Endgame would need to make to beat Avatar and become the highest grossing film of all time. I thought they were going to do that, and I didn't think it would be hard, especially for Endgame.

Going into Doomsday, being able to claim that Endgame, the last big Marvel event, is the biggest movie of all time is genius. I think they need to hit that number because it's part of their marketing plan. I expected lines along the lines of: from the people who brought you the biggest movie of all time in the entire world in all of our lifetimes. That's good marketing.

Reason two: the Russo brothers' teaser sold a feeling meant to carry into Doomsday

The teaser the Russos released was very specific. It wasn't a plain clip of Endgame. They tell you that you're going to want to turn it up, and then they show the crowd: a movie theater reacting to "On your left," Captain America, "Avengers: assemble" and the giant fight. What they specifically say is, "You remember this feeling, you love this feeling."

I think what they're doing there is genius. They're trying to transfer that feeling into Doomsday, and it was already working on me. I was excited that Endgame was coming back to theaters, and the timing put it a few months before Doomsday. When you go and relive those feelings, the Russos are subliminally telling you that you love this feeling and reminding you of that nostalgia. And for those who maybe didn't get to see it in theaters the first time, now they can.

Once you remember that experience, you get excited all over again, and the next thing to be excited about is Doomsday. They're transferring the feelings we had for Endgame over to Doomsday, or at least trying to as best they can. Obviously it won't be the same. But we didn't know then what the full marketing for Doomsday would look like, and they could do some crazy stuff. This was already genius as it was.

The plan works like this: re-release the movie, capture again how much we loved Endgame, and carry that over to Doomsday. I believed that would get a lot more people to go see the new movie. At the same time, the marketing gets to say Endgame is the number one movie of all time, so from the people who brought you that, here's the next big one. That would get many people excited as well. Bringing that feeling into the marketing is genius, and so is becoming the highest grossing movie of all time. I think it's brilliant.

Reason three: the Russos said the end of Endgame connects to Doomsday

There are going to be connections between Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Endgame. The Russo brothers had already confirmed this, saying that the events at the end of Endgame would connect to Doomsday. Many people have been looking specifically at the Iron Man snap, Iron Man dying and that whole event at the end. Probably Natasha Romanoff's death as well, because we've heard that Scarlett Johansson is going to return as a variant of Black Widow. Fingers crossed. I hope she does.

Since the Russos had confirmed a pretty big connection between the two films, the re-release works as a refresher. The message is that you have to see this again and remember what happened, because it will mean something in the new movie. It sounds like you'll need to have seen Endgame at least once to know what happens in Doomsday.

I'm pretty sure the vast majority of people would have seen Endgame going into Doomsday, or at least I would hope so. But if Doomsday is your first Marvel movie, that's cool. You might be a little confused, but it's still cool.

Reason four: Marvel may have been gauging how audiences still feel about Marvel

The fourth reason is perhaps a sign of caution from Marvel Studios. They're gauging the audience to see who shows up and how people still feel about Marvel. We have heard so much about Marvel fatigue and superhero fatigue, and we've heard it for years, ever since Endgame. So I think it goes back to that feeling. Marvel is trying to gauge how much of it they can capture once again.

If turnout was lower than they expected, I believed they would step up their marketing campaign from September to December, when Doomsday was due out, and then again from December to Avengers: Secret Wars. Doomsday had the potential to become the highest grossing movie of all time. But if it's amazing and doesn't achieve that goal, Secret Wars could, with Doomsday setting up something crazy and the marketing going crazy in the year in between.

Secret Wars definitely has that possibility. Both films have the possibility of becoming the biggest movie of all time, and Secret Wars could even dethrone Doomsday to do so.

I think Marvel, with everything they were doing, was setting it up perfectly for Doomsday to be a success. Releasing Endgame once again is genius for all the reasons above, so kudos to Marvel. I think it's one of the best moves they could have made at that point. I was excited to go see Endgame in theaters once again. It was a crazy great experience, and I was already feeling the excitement I felt watching it in theaters the first time.