Disney Is Re-Releasing Endgame to Chase a Record. It Tried That in 2019 and Missed.

written by Bryan Rothman

September 4, 2026 1:05 pm

Disney Is Re-Releasing Endgame to Chase a Record. It Tried That in 2019 and Missed. — Image credit: IMDb

Avengers: Endgame returns to cinemas on 25 September as Endgame: Encore, with roughly four minutes of new footage and a look at Doomsday. Disney has run this play before, with this exact film, and it did not work then either.

In June 2019, Endgame was re-released with about seven minutes of extra material — a Stan Lee tribute, an unfinished deleted scene, an intro from Anthony Russo and the opening of Far From Home. The stated goal was to overtake Avatar for the all-time worldwide crown, then a gap of roughly $26M. It made about $6M that weekend and fell short. Avatar's 2021 China re-release took the title back for good.

What Encore actually is

25 September 2026. Tickets went on sale 25 August.
Runtime 185 minutes against the original 181 — a four-minute delta, which is the only hard confirmation of how much is new. Marvel has not published a figure.
The additions are not deleted scenes. Joe Russo says the footage is set in the Doomsday story and was shot during Doomsday production.
A custom introduction, new footage, and a Doomsday look; IMAX and "Infinity Vision" screens get a second, exclusive end tag that standard screens do not.
"Infinity Vision" is a new Disney premium certification — screens at least 45 feet wide, immersive sound, brightness standards. Over 7,500 screens have applied.
One verified price point: $28 including fees for a top-tier AMC seat. No national structure has been announced.

What a re-release actually earns

This is the part that decides whether the chart story is real:

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (2025) — $42.2M worldwide, $25.2M domestic. The modern ceiling.
Coraline in 3D (2024) — $20.2M worldwide.
Titanic in 4K (2023) — $22.3M opening weekend globally.
Interstellar IMAX (2024) — the biggest IMAX re-release ever, in the $20–25M range.
Lord of the Rings — $8M in 2024, $11M for the 25th-anniversary run in January 2026.
Princess Mononoke IMAX (2025) — $4.1M opening weekend.

Endgame currently trails Spider-Man: Brand New Day domestically by $33.1M, and that gap is still widening while Spider-Man plays. Retaking second place would need a re-release grossing $75M+ domestically — nearly double the biggest modern re-release's global total. Worldwide, closing on Avatar needs about $125M, roughly three times that ceiling.

Re-release money does count — Avatar's 2021 China run retook No. 1 by $5M, and Titanic's 2023 return pushed The Way of Water down a place. But those closed gaps of $8M and change. This one is $33M and $125M.

So what is it for

A $28 trailer. Marvel's own announcement leads with the Doomsday preview, the new footage was shot on Doomsday, and the exclusive end tag is restricted to the premium formats Marvel needs filled on 18 December — when Doomsday opens against Dune: Part Three. Joe Russo has called Endgame "required viewing for following the story in Doomsday."

The 25 September frame is soft: the only real wide competition is Paramount's Heart of the Beast, David Ayer's survival thriller with Brad Pitt. Disney picked its weekend carefully.

Worth noting what has not been said: no territory count, no explanation of what the four minutes contain, no pricing structure, no run length, and no on-record statement from Disney or Kevin Feige. Every "Disney says" framing circulating this week is paraphrase.