'Avengers Endgame: Encore' streams on Disney+ Nov. 13

Marvel's extended cut of "Avengers: Endgame," rebuilt to set up the next team-up movie, starts streaming on Disney+ on Friday, Nov. 13. That gives subscribers the new footage five weeks before "Avengers: Doomsday" opens in theaters on Dec. 18.

"Avengers Endgame: Encore" runs about four minutes longer than the 2019 original. It has revised color grading and added sequences, filmed during the "Doomsday" shoot, that link the two films. An official listing appeared this week for subscribers in the U.S., and Marvel Studios marked the date with a new TV spot, "Countdown to 'Doomsday,'" and a poster. The cut streams only on Disney+.

The service has carried the original "Endgame" for years, so the Encore version matters mainly for its new material. Marvel had not confirmed a streaming date before now. IGN suggested the studio held back to keep fans buying tickets during the theatrical run. If that was the plan, it worked.

The September rerelease opened with $26 million domestically and $86 million worldwide, and it lifted the film's global total to $2.925 billion. That moved "Endgame" past "Avatar" and back to the top of the all-time box office chart. Retaking that spot with a seven-year-old movie most fans had already seen, largely on the promise of a few new minutes, is an unusual feat. In effect, audiences paid admission for an elaborate "Doomsday" trailer, and Marvel turned its biggest asset into marketing that earned money on its own.

What the new scenes change

Details of the additions were kept secret until the September theatrical debut and leaked online soon after. The biggest change rewrites the film's ending. In 2019, Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter got an uninterrupted happy ending. In Encore, that scene is cut short when Loki shows up, apparently during his time working with the Time Variance Authority.

The rest of the new material comes in added mid- and post-credits scenes. One is a found-footage-style sequence with Bruce Banner, set after his role in "Spider-Man: Brand New Day." Another takes place inside the TVA and brings back several characters from the "Loki" series. The last reworks the film's closing sound of a hammer striking metal. That sound once recalled Tony Stark building his first Iron Man mask, and it is now revealed to be Doctor Doom forging his own.

That final reveal is the smartest piece of the package. Robert Downey Jr. played Stark through "Endgame" and returns in "Doomsday" as Doom, so a single sound cue now points to both characters without a line of dialogue. The Steve and Peggy change is harder to defend. That ending was the cleanest emotional payoff in the Infinity Saga, and interrupting it trades earned closure for a setup. Fans who loved the 2019 ending may object most to that edit, even though the original cut remains in circulation.

Anthony Russo, who directed both films with his brother Joe, has said the first "Endgame" was designed to finish several characters' stories. When the brothers began mapping out "Doomsday," he said, they found they had to pick up where that film left off. Encore is the most literal version of that idea. It also presents "Doomsday" mainly as a sequel to Marvel's best-loved stretch, not as the start of the end of the Multiverse Saga, the more uneven run of films and series since 2019. Leaning on the Infinity Saga is a sensible commercial choice, but it also makes the new movie answer to the old one.

A December fight without Imax

"Doomsday" gathers heroes from several universes: the Avengers, the Wakandans from "Black Panther," the Thunderbolts (now billed as the New Avengers) from the main Earth-616 timeline, the Fantastic Four from Earth-828 and the original X-Men from the Fox era. The story follows the events of "Thunderbolts*," whose cast included Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell and Lewis Pullman.

To help viewers catch up, Disney+ has put together a 15-title watch list. It runs from "X-Men" and "X2" through "Captain America: The First Avenger," the Avengers films, "Loki," "Spider-Man: No Way Home," "Deadpool & Wolverine," "Thunderbolts*" and "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." There is also a five-episode companion podcast hosted by Iman Vellani, who plays Ms. Marvel, and Frank Alvarez. Each episode revisits one Infinity Saga film, and the final episode, on "Endgame," came out alongside the theatrical rerelease. Separately, the finale of "Vision Quest" on Disney+ this week ended with a post-credits scene teasing "Doomsday."

The biggest problem facing the film is screens, not story. Warner Bros.' "Dune: Part 3" opens the same day and has locked up every Imax screen for three weeks. Variety has compared the "Dunesday" matchup to the "Barbenheimer" weekend of 2023. Marvel's answer is Infinity Vision, a premium format that Kevin Feige unveiled at CinemaCon. Disney is rebranding existing premium theater screens under that name.

That is a reasonable workaround, but it is mostly a new label. Imax has built years of audience trust as the way to see an event movie, and that loyalty helped "Oppenheimer" grow its run. Infinity Vision has to earn the same trust in a matter of weeks. The Encore release looks like part of that effort: reminding millions of subscribers why the last "Avengers" movie felt worth the biggest screen available.

Encore arrives on Disney+ on Friday. "Avengers: Doomsday" and "Dune: Part 3" both open on Dec. 18.