has returned to cinemas in a new ‘Encore’ edition, complete with previously unseen footage designed to set up – but what exactly has been added? Find out below.
First released in 2019, concluded the Infinity Saga as the surviving Avengers reversed Thanos’ snap, Tony Stark sacrificed himself to defeat the villain and Steve Rogers travelled back through time before choosing to remain in the past with Peggy Carter.
Seven years later, Marvel has brought the film back to cinemas ahead of , which will see Robert Downey Jr. return to the MCU as Victor von Doom rather than Tony Stark.
The ‘Encore’ presentation opened in cinemas on September 25 and adds roughly four minutes of new material filmed during production on . Marvel had promised an “exclusive look” at the forthcoming film, with an additional sneak peek available at IMAX and Infinity Vision-certified screenings.
Watch the trailer for below.
What’s new in ‘Avengers: Endgame Encore’?
Loki interrupts Steve and Peggy
The most striking change begins before the original film has even finished.
In 2019, concluded with a young Steve Rogers finally sharing his long-promised dance with Peggy Carter after choosing to remain in the past. In ‘Encore’, that sequence continues.
A knock interrupts their dance and Peggy answers the door, where she finds Loki in his Time Variance Authority clothes. When Peggy asks whether she can help him, Loki tells her that he can instead help her – before making clear that he knows Steve is hiding nearby and means “both of you”.
The scene directly connects the ending of to Loki’s role as the guardian of the branching multiverse and also gives new context to Chris Evans’ confirmed return as Steve Rogers in .
Doctor Doom comes for Bruce Banner
The next substantial addition catches up with Bruce Banner after the events that lead into .
Banner is seen recording a video diary from a military facility deep underground, where he has voluntarily isolated himself after suffering his first Hulk “incident” in more than a decade. He explains that he has been developing a gamma-suppression serum designed to prevent Hulk from breaking free.
His recording is interrupted when the lights begin to glitch and an eerie green glow appears. Banner asks who has entered the supposedly secure facility, before the voice of Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom answers.
Doom tells him: “I’m here to collect you.”
The picture then cuts out as Hulk can be heard roaring. When the camera returns, both Banner and Doom are gone, leaving behind glowing green markings on the floor. Exactly why Doom wants Hulk – and whether Banner is being recruited, imprisoned or used for some other purpose – is left unanswered.
Doctor Doom forges his mask
The 2019 film famously ended its credits with the sound of metal being hammered, a deliberate echo of Tony Stark constructing his first Iron Man suit back in 2008. ‘Encore’ gives that sound a new meaning for the next era of the MCU.
This time, the hammering accompanies footage of Doctor Doom forging his mask, creating an explicit visual link between Downey Jr.’s former Marvel character and the entirely separate villain he is now playing.
The TVA discovers that the multiverse is collapsing
Mobius, O.B. and Casey discover an incursion developing between two realities, identified as Earth-10005 and Earth-1127. Earth-10005 is the designation previously associated with the Fox movie universe – one of the realities already confirmed to play a major part in .
What initially appears to be an isolated crisis quickly gets much worse. More universes begin suffering incursions, the number escalating into the thousands as the TVA realises the structure of the multiverse itself is failing.
O.B. sums up the scale of the problem: “The multiverse is collapsing.”
Together, the additions turn ’s previously definitive ending into a bridge to the next Avengers film: Steve and Peggy are now connected to Loki, Hulk has been taken by Doom and the TVA is watching entire realities move towards destruction.
will arrive in UK cinemas on December 16, two days before its December 18 release in the US.