Avengers: Endgame Will Get A Doomsday-Inspired Retcon
Maybe Endgame wasn’t really the end.
It’s no secret that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has meandered a bit since Avengers: Endgame. The 2019 movie was a culmination of years of planning for the franchise, but afterward, it was difficult to see what the next big thing would be. WandaVision and Spider-Man: Far From Home revealed what the post-Blip world looked like, and it seemed like Loki and Ant-Man: Quantumania hinted at the next big thing: Kang the Conqueror.
But when real-life scandal foiled those plans, Marvel went back to what worked with Avengers: Doomsday, starring Robert Downey Jr. and directed by Endgame’s the Russo brothers. Now, in an effort to smooth the transition (and tempt fans into a rewatch), Avengers: Endgame is getting pulled off the shelf and tweaked.
With Chris Evans returning as Steve Rogers in Doomsday, this re-release could reveal what really happened to him.
Back in December 2025, Marvel announced that Avengers: Endgame would get a re-release in theaters ahead of the December 2026 release of Avengers: Doomsday. Re-releases aren’t unusual, especially for big franchises, but in the world of the MCU, it’s only really happened with Sony’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, which was re-released with an extended action sequence.
Last week, at CinemaCon 2026, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige announced that the Endgame re-release will follow this pattern, including brand-new footage. However, we didn’t know what that footage would contain until now. According to Deadline, at the Sands Film Festival in St. Andrews, Scotland, Joe Russo revealed that the new footage won’t just be a deleted scene. “It’s critically important to re-release the movie, and, in fact, we’ll be re-releasing the film with footage that is set in the Doomsday story that we have added to Avengers: Endgame,” he said.
The new footage was announced at CinemaCon, but now we know it’ll tie into Doomsday.
That makes this event more than just a re-release. Now, it’s a retcon, the equivalent of the Star Wars Special Editions that edited Hayden Christensen as ghost Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi. He wasn’t there initially, but his addition smoothed the transition from the original trilogy to the prequel trilogy.
Of course, it’s easy to see the practical reason for this choice. Especially in the era of streaming, most Marvel fans could watch Endgame whenever they wanted from the comfort of their homes. But the promise of new footage of any kind, especially the kind that changes canon we thought was settled for seven years, is enough to bring fans back to theaters. It’s not the first time Marvel has bet big on fans buying a movie ticket just for a glimpse of Doomsday: there were an unprecedented four different teasers released alongside Avatar: Fire and Ash on a weekly basis.
Endgame was a massive success, currently the top-grossing movie of all time, a lead that will only grow with a re-release. But how will meddling from the future affect the story, and will this become the “accepted” version of Endgame in the future? That will only be determined by the fan reaction.
