Fans have plenty of catching up to do before consuming the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) next massive crossover. To understand where the universe is heading, we first need to look back at “Avengers: Endgame.”
Following Thanos’s devastating “snap,” the surviving Avengers were left completely hopeless. The Mad Titan had won, erasing half of all life in the universe and turning fan-favorite superheroes like Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) to dust.
The remainder of the team was adrift until Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) suddenly appeared after a 5-year time jump and explained that being safely trapped inside the Quantum Realm protected him from the universal destruction.
Armed with this breakthrough, the heroes approached Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) to do the seemingly impossible: use the Quantum Realm to build a time machine.
Stark succeeded, launching an ambitious “time heist.” The Avengers split up into five different times, New York City (2012), Asgard (2013), Morag (2014), Vormir (2014) and Camp Lehigh, New Jersey (1970). They aimed to retrieve the Infinity Stones, bring them to the present and undo Thanos’s deadly snap.
Everything was going according to plan until a past version of Nebula (Karen Gillan) infiltrated the team and hijacked the machine, pulling Thanos and his massive Chitauri army forward into the present day.
This triggered an epic, massive-scale showdown uniting all of Earth’s greatest heroes against Thanos.
Victory ultimately required the highest cost.
Stark managed to steal the Infinity Stones back, snapping the Mad Titan and his army out of existence, but not without sacrificing his life. Watching the hero who started it all take his final agonizing breaths surrounded by his devastated found family remains a uniquely gut-wrenching farewell to Iron Man.
To bridge the gap and prepare fans for the next phase, Marvel Studios is bringing the blockbuster back to all major theaters on Sept. 25, 2026 as “Avengers: Endgame: Encore.”
This special limited theatrical presentation is designed to tap into the communal magic of the original 2019 release while teeing up the future. The encore features four minutes of unreleased footage that is recommended viewing to understand the transition into the next saga.
Fans who catch the film on premium screens like IMAX or Infinity Vision will be shown an exclusive sneak peek of the upcoming sequel.
In “Avengers: Doomsday,” Victor Von Doom, the absolute monarch and ruler of his birthplace, serves as the main villain. Audiences were first introduced to this iteration of Doom during the post-credits scene of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps”, which established his origins in the alternate universe of Earth-828.
Now, the multiversal conqueror is crossing over into the main MCU timeline.
Robert Downey Jr.’s return serves as an unexpected surprise in the film. He isn’t playing Stark; instead, he is stepping into the cold iron mask of Victor Von Doom. This forces the surviving Avengers to grapple with the psychological toll of fighting a ruthless dictator who wears the exact face of their fallen savior.
Directed by returning heavyweights Joe and Anthony Russo, “Doomsday” promises an unprecedented crossover with a massive roster of established heroes—including Thor, Ant-Man, Shang-Chi, The Fantastic Four and the Wakandan army and Fox’s X-Men.
While “Endgame” was about reversing a singular tragedy, “Doomsday” is about surviving a possible multiversal collapse due to a phenomenon known as an incursion which was shown in the “Doomsday” trailer.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” previously mentioned that when a footprint is left on a foreign universe, it can mess up its entire balance, which could result in total destruction. The incursion crisis is serving as the high-stakes prelude to 2027’s “Secret Wars.”