Joe Russo doesn’t oversell things. When he calls something “critically important,” it’s worth paying attention.
Speaking at the Sands Film Festival this weekend, the Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Doomsday co-director pulled back the curtain on exactly what the upcoming Endgame theatrical re-release actually is — and it’s not the nostalgia exercise the CinemaCon announcement made it sound like. “It’s critically important to re-release the movie,” Russo said, “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.”
Read that again. The new footage isn’t bonus material bolted onto the back of a beloved film. It’s footage set within the Doomsday narrative — scenes that exist to create what Russo described as a bridge between the two films. “It’s an opportunity to create a bridge from Endgame to Doomsday in a very unique way,” he said. The re-release, hitting theaters September 25, 2026, is a “critical companion story” consisting of “setup for what you’re gonna watch in December when you see Avengers: Doomsday.”
That’s a different thing entirely from what every outlet reported when the CinemaCon announcement dropped last week. A re-release with new footage is a box office move. A re-release that functions as narrative setup for the next film is something Marvel has never done before.
What Will the New Footage Actually Show?
Russo didn’t specify what the new scenes contain, and Marvel’s security around Doomsday has been characteristically airtight. What we can work with is context.
Avengers: Endgame ends in 2023 — five years after Thanos’s snap — with Tony Stark dead, Steve Rogers returned to the past, and the Infinity Stones destroyed. Doomsday, set years later, brings in Victor Von Doom as the primary antagonist alongside an unprecedented assembly of MCU and Fox-era characters. The connective tissue between those two endpoints — how the MCU’s post-Endgame world fractured, how the multiverse began hemorrhaging, how Doom positioned himself — has been filled in piecemeal across Phase 4, 5, and 6 projects.
A “bridge” scene added to Endgame could anchor any number of things. The five-year gap between the snap and Endgame‘s main story has always been dramatically underexplored on screen. The multiversal consequences that began with Loki and No Way Home clearly have roots the films haven’t fully excavated. Whatever the footage shows, Russo’s framing makes one thing clear: Endgame as it existed before September 25 is now the incomplete version.
What Is Infinity Vision — and Why Is It Launching Now?
The re-release also marks the debut of Disney’s new premium large-format certification, branded Infinity Vision. Think of it as Disney’s answer to IMAX and Dolby Cinema — a standard designed to specify which theaters offer the largest screens, laser projection, and immersive audio. Both the Endgame re-release and Avengers: Doomsday (December 18, 2026) will carry the certification.
The timing isn’t coincidental. Avengers: Doomsday won’t receive an IMAX release in the United States — Dune: Part Three holds an exclusive three-week PLF window in December 2026 that blocks Doomsday from IMAX screens during its opening run. Infinity Vision, then, isn’t just a branding exercise. It’s Marvel and Disney building their own premium ecosystem rather than operating inside someone else’s. The Endgame re-release is the proof of concept.
For context: Endgame grossed $2.799 billion worldwide and remains the second-highest-grossing film in history. Launching a new exhibition standard on the back of that film is about as safe a bet as the industry can make.
Why This Changes Your Doomsday Plans
Here’s what matters practically. If Russo is describing the re-release as a “critical companion story” that sets up what you’re going to watch in December, that’s a director telling you the September 25 screening is part of the experience — not a preamble to it. Marvel has done re-releases before. Avengers: Infinity War got one ahead of Endgame. None of them came with the director calling the new content setup for the next film.
The MCU rarely adds to finished movies. The fact that the Russos are doing it here — inserting Doomsday-era footage into Endgame‘s runtime — suggests the bridge between these two films requires something no amount of exposition in Doomsday itself could efficiently provide. Seven years of continuity, a dead Tony Stark, a fractured multiverse, and Robert Downey Jr. returning not as Iron Man but as Doctor Doom. The math on how you get from A to B is complicated. Apparently, it needs a dedicated scene.
September 25 is four months from now. The calculus has changed — this is no longer the warm-up act.