‘Avengers: Endgame Encore’ and the Enshifitication of Movie Re-releases

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

I usually enjoy anniversary re-releases of films. It’s a chance to re-view a beloved film in a cinema, on a massive screen with popcorn and snacks. Hell, I saw Suzume like twice when it was re-released in Japanese cinemas in 2023…
I was going to see Avengers: Endgame Encore today but, just as I left Resident Evil (such a good movie!) it turned out the film’s content, specificallty the extra scenes, had leaked all over the internet… And it was a whopping two minutes of footage.
Two minutes. Less than the deleted scenes you can find most releases…
Endgame was one of the two movies I watched obsessively over the course of the pandemic. This was mainly because Endgame is a freaking awesome movie but also because much of the last act takes place in Norwich. Yes, there’s a local connection, specifically that the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts was used as the Avenger’s base during this arc of the movies. Watching that get blown up, when I couldn’t visit the campus myself, was kinda calming for me…
(In case you were wondering, the other film was Contagion, for obvious reasons…)
But it seems like films are being treated as visual events but also ones which are prohibitively expensive. I pay for Limitless so I can review films, but average ticket prices range from £10 to £25 (Odeon has weird bed thing you can lie on…). But just look at the price of these popcorn buckets, which have gone from an occasional oddity to releases for every single movie. And note their sold-out status too. I actually saw the Infinity Gauntlet one at my local Odeon; it was the size of my hand. A human hand!!! But it’s also £45 (albeit with a drink and popcorn but still…)
The thing it, movies have shifted from just being movies, to being about the experience. Which is fine, but it makes the financial cost skyrocket. For me, and a friend, it costs nothing. But for a family, with snacks, with merch, with seats, it can be prohibitive. Especially when you look at a film like Encore, which is touted to be a mandatory watch prior to December’s Doomsday,
(Yes. new films come with homework now…)
Marvel are hyping the film, only for early viewers (mostly in Asia thanks to the International Date Line) to reveal that the only new stuff doesn’t even take place in the film. No, it’s all mid- and end-credits scenes. So you go in, expecting a fresh take on a beloved story, only to be bait-and-switched while you’re desperate to go and pee after two hours in, an albeit very comfy, seat.
That is just cheeky… And not in a good way…
The other issue is Marvel have lost a lost of their luster since 2019, where Endgame was a true cinematic event, the culmination of years and films. A true event for the ages, but since then Marvel have fallen quite far. And they are chasing any way to get back that top spot which came from the whole Infinity Saga, one they worked at, one they hyped over years, only to stick the landing perfectly with Endgame.
Films are usually good (like Spiderman…) but there are so many TV series to watch, so many films to be disappointed by. And, honestly, there’s not been enough set up for this next cinematic event. We’re told it will be the next Barbenheimer (called Dunesday). But it doesn’t feel earned.
Oppenheimer and Barbie wasn’t a planned thing; it was the organic synchronicity of two tonally different films which just cannot be replicated by forcing the issue or trying to engineer intentionally. These things they are like unicorns, seen once in a blue moon in a tranquil forest. You can’t hunt for them. Dune: Part Three, certainly, will be the highlight but I’m still not sure Doomsday deserves a part of that… The film exists, but the run-up has been so inconsistent, too deeply enmeshed in random TV series, small mentions in films and reworked storylines left too late.
Too little, too late… Too much expense for too little pay off. Too much hype borrowed from an entirely removed franchise.
While I’m certain Doomsday will be an interesting movie, it cannot compete with Endgame. Indeed, I honestly think this cheapens the power Endgame had on us as a generation of moviegoers. I took a look at Rotten Tomatoes, which seems to meld both releases, and seems to be using the former film’s score to justify why everyone needs to go to see Encore, and those two precious minutes of footage. That, to me, feels really skewed and biased. As a film reviewer, that just makes me annoyed. You’re using the nostalgia to judge a newer version of a film, with little actual new substance bar the colour volume and a few extra minutes of footage which re-jigs the story for another entry in the series…
I still intend to see Doomsday, and it will be releasing in the UK a couple of days before the US, which actually makes my job easier because I only have a certain amount of bandwidth when it comes to sitting and watching films in cinemas these days. Doing Dune: Part Three and Doomsday on the same day was going to be exhausting… So I’m glad of that. I just feel like this is too much force, too much engineering. Marvel needs a hit, so they’re trying to force one into existence…
And I don’t think that’s going to work, and doing this using Endgame is not the way to do it. But, for now, we’re going to have to wait until December too see whether this is even going to work. So, if you love the film and want to see it in the cinema, do please go, but I would rather watch Endgame as it was in 2019, than use it as way to force a new storyline and a new era of cinematic fiction.
Asha Bardon, MA is a gaming journalist, editor and author.
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