Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame is a 2019 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero team the Avengers. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the direct sequel to Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and the 22nd film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, the film features an ensemble cast which includes Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Josh Brolin. In the film, the surviving members of the Avengers and their allies attempt to reverse Thanos's actions in Infinity War.
Avengers: Endgame
- April 22, 2019 (Los Angeles Convention Center)
- April 26, 2019 (United States)
181 minutes[1]
United States
English
$2.799 billion[4]
The film was announced in October 2014 as Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2, but Marvel later removed this title. The Russo brothers joined as directors in April 2015, with Markus and McFeely signing on to write the script a month later. The film is a conclusion to the story of the MCU up to that point, ending the story arcs of several main characters. Its plot revisits several moments from earlier films, bringing back actors and settings throughout the franchise. Filming began in August 2017 at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Fayette County, Georgia, shooting back-to-back with Infinity War, and ended in January 2018. Additional filming took place in the Metro and downtown Atlanta areas, New York State, Scotland, and England. The official title was announced in December 2018. With an estimated budget of $356–400 million, the film is one of the most expensive films ever produced.
Avengers: Endgame premiered in Los Angeles on April 22, 2019, and was released in the United States on April 26 as part of Phase Three of the MCU. The film received praise for its direction, acting, musical score, action scenes, visual effects, and emotional weight, with critics lauding its culmination of the 22-film story. It grossed $2.799 billion worldwide, surpassing Infinity War's theatrical run in eleven days and setting a number of box-office records; it was the highest-grossing film of all time from July 2019 to March 2021. The film was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 92nd Academy Awards, among other accolades. A fifth Avengers film and a sixth, Avengers: Secret Wars, are scheduled for release in 2026 and 2027, respectively.
Plot
In 2018, twenty-three days after Thanos erased half of all life in the universe,[a] Carol Danvers rescues Tony Stark and Nebula from deep space and they reunite with the remaining Avengers—Bruce Banner, Steve Rogers, Thor, Natasha Romanoff, and James Rhodes—and Rocket on Earth. Locating Thanos on an uninhabited planet, they plan to use the Infinity Stones to reverse his actions but find that Thanos has destroyed them. Enraged, Thor decapitates Thanos.
Five years later, Scott Lang escapes from the Quantum Realm.[b] Reaching the Avengers Compound, he explains that he experienced only five hours while he was trapped. Theorizing that the Quantum Realm allows time travel, they ask a reluctant Stark to help them retrieve the Stones from the past to reverse Thanos's present actions. Stark, Rocket, and Banner, who has merged his intelligence with the Hulk's strength, build a time machine. Banner notes that altering the past does not affect their present; any changes create alternate realities. Banner and Rocket travel to Norway, where they visit the Asgardian refugee settlement of New Asgard and recruit an overweight, despondent Thor. In Tokyo, Romanoff recruits Clint Barton, who became a vigilante after the erasure of his family.
Banner, Lang, Rogers, and Stark time-travel to New York City during Loki's attack in 2012.[c] At the Sanctum Sanctorum, Banner convinces the Ancient One to give him the Time Stone after promising to return the Infinity Stones to their proper points in time. At Stark Tower, Rogers retrieves the Mind Stone from Hydra sleeper agents; Stark and Lang's attempt to steal the Space Stone fails, however, allowing 2012-Loki to escape with it. Rogers and Stark travel to Camp Lehigh in 1970, where Stark obtains an earlier version of the Space Stone and encounters his father Howard. Rogers steals Pym Particles from Hank Pym to return to the present and sees his lost love, Peggy Carter.
Rocket and Thor travel to Asgard in 2013;[d] Rocket extracts the Reality Stone from Jane Foster. Thor is encouraged by his mother, Frigga, and retrieves his old hammer, Mjolnir. Barton, Romanoff, Nebula, and Rhodes travel to 2014; Nebula and Rhodes go to Morag and steal the Power Stone before Peter Quill can,[e] while Barton and Romanoff travel to Vormir. The Soul Stone's keeper, Red Skull, says that it can only be acquired by sacrificing a loved one. Romanoff sacrifices herself, allowing Barton to get the Stone. Rhodes and Nebula attempt to return to their own time, but Nebula is incapacitated when her cybernetic implants link with her past self; this allows 2014-Thanos to learn about his future self's success and the Avengers' attempt to undo it. 2014-Thanos sends 2014-Nebula forward in time to prepare for his arrival.
Reuniting in the present, the Avengers place the Stones into a gauntlet that Stark, Banner, and Rocket have built. Banner, who has the most resistance to their radiation, uses the gauntlet to undo Thanos's disintegrations. Meanwhile, 2014-Nebula (impersonating her future self) uses the time machine to transport 2014-Thanos and his warship to the present and destroys the Avengers Compound. Present-day Nebula convinces 2014-Gamora to betray Thanos, but is unable to convince 2014-Nebula and kills her. Thanos overpowers Stark, Thor and a Mjolnir-wielding Rogers; he summons his army to retrieve the Stones, intent on using them to destroy the universe and create a new one. A restored Stephen Strange arrives with other sorcerers, the restored Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy, the Ravagers, and the armies of Wakanda and Asgard to fight Thanos's army. Danvers also arrives and destroys Thanos's warship, but Thanos overpowers her and seizes the gauntlet. Stark steals the Stones and uses them to disintegrate Thanos and his army, sacrificing himself.
After Stark's funeral, Thor appoints Valkyrie as the new king of New Asgard and joins the Guardians. Rogers returns the Stones and Mjolnir to their proper timelines and remains in the past to live with Carter. In the present, an elderly Rogers passes his shield to Sam Wilson.
Several actors from Infinity War reprise their roles in Endgame, including Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Stephen Strange,[53] Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa / Black Panther,[54] Tom Holland as Peter Parker / Spider-Man, Zoe Saldaña as Gamora,[41] Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff,[55] Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Falcon,[56] Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier,[57] Tom Hiddleston as Loki,[58] Pom Klementieff as Mantis,[59] Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer,[41] Letitia Wright as Shuri,[60] William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill,[41] Winston Duke as M'Baku,[61] Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw,[41] Jacob Batalon as Ned,[62] Vin Diesel as Groot,[41] Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord,[55] Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Ross Marquand as Red Skull / Stonekeeper, Michael James Shaw as Corvus Glaive, Terry Notary as Cull Obsidian,[41] and Kerry Condon as the voice of Stark's suit AI F.R.I.D.A.Y.[63] Monique Ganderton again provided motion capture for Proxima Midnight.[41]
Also reprising their roles from previous MCU films were Evangeline Lilly as Hope van Dyne / Wasp,[64] Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie, Rene Russo as Frigga, John Slattery as Howard Stark, Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One, Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Marisa Tomei as May Parker, Taika Waititi as Korg,[62] Angela Bassett as Ramonda,[41] Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet van Dyne, Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton, Maximiliano Hernández as Jasper Sitwell,[62] Frank Grillo as Brock Rumlow,[65] Robert Redford as Alexander Pierce, Callan Mulvey as Jack Rollins, and Ty Simpkins as Harley Keener.[62] Sean Gunn reprised his role as Kraglin and was credited for the role,[66] although he is not clearly visible in the film.[67] Natalie Portman appears as Jane Foster in footage from a deleted Thor: The Dark World (2013) scene and a voiceover when Foster is talking in the distance.[68] James D'Arcy reprised his role as Edwin Jarvis from the MCU television series Agent Carter, the first time a character introduced in an MCU television series appeared in an MCU film.[69]
Hiroyuki Sanada played Akihiko, a Yakuza boss in Tokyo who opposes Barton. Lexi Rabe played Morgan Stark, Tony and Pepper's daughter.[41][66] Katherine Langford was cast as an older Morgan, but her scene was cut from the final film.[70][71] Emma Fuhrmann played an older Cassie Lang, Scott's daughter, after the character was played as a child by Abby Ryder Fortson in previous MCU films.[72] Avengers co-creator Stan Lee had a posthumous cameo in the film, digitally de-aged as a car driver in 1970, in his final film appearance.[73] Ken Jeong and Yvette Nicole Brown had cameo appearances as a storage facility guard and a S.H.I.E.L.D. employee, respectively.[62] Co-director Joe Russo (credited as Gozie Agbo) had a cameo appearance as a grieving gay man, the first appearance of an openly homosexual character in an MCU film.[74] Joe's daughters Ava and Lia Russo played Barton's daughter Lila and a fan of Hulk, respectively. Thanos creator Jim Starlin also appeared as a grieving man.[75] The character Howard the Duck appeared in a non-speaking cameo.[76]
Marketing
The marketing campaign for Endgame cost over $200 million, the most for any Marvel Studios film. Promotional partners included Stand Up to Cancer, Mastercard, Ulta Beauty, the Audi e-tron GT concept car (which appears in the film), McDonald's, GEICO, Coca-Cola, Google, General Mills, Hertz, Ziploc, Oppo, and Synchrony Financial.[119] A year before the film's release, Germain Lussier of io9 spoke on the approach Marvel might have to take in marketing the film, given the end of Infinity War where many established characters die. He questioned if those characters would appear on posters and in toy campaigns, and if the actors playing them would participate in press events leading up to the film's release. Lussier felt that Disney and Marvel could focus on the original Avengers team members (most of the living characters), but noted that it would be more beneficial to show the return of the dead characters; this would create a "mystery and curiosity about how they come back" and a "whole new level of interest" for the film "while having all the stars front and center".[120] Feige said in June 2018 that the dead characters would not be featured in the film's marketing.[121] He presented a behind-the-scenes video from the film at CineEurope,[122][123] and said that its marketing campaign would begin at the end of 2018.[124] In early December 2018, before the first trailer's release, Graeme McMillan of The Hollywood Reporter spoke about the "fevered anticipation" surrounding it and felt it "remarkable", mostly "fan-created, without [the] noticeable direction from Marvel or the filmmakers involved"; knowledge about the film, without promotion was, "a kind of brand awareness" that was unusual. McMillan urged Marvel not to release any trailers for the film, since "the advanced level of enthusiasm [...] [was] likely to build" before its release; a trailer would take away the "Schrödinger's cat-esque position", as it was "almost guaranteed" to disappoint fans.[125]
The first trailer for the film was released on December 7, 2018.[126] Dustin Sandoval, vice president of digital marketing for Marvel Studios, said that the marketing team "made the choice" to omit the "title or hashtag" for the film in its trailer posts, allowing fans to see the trailer without spoiling it by watching "at the end".[127] Richard Newby, also of The Hollywood Reporter, felt that although little new material was revealed in the trailer, it offered a "somber glimpse of a universe made unrecognizable" and let the viewer consider "the ending of Avengers: Infinity War and our questions of loss". Newby noted that the trailer highlighted the characters' "humble beginnings" with its visual language, and left viewers with "just as many questions as we had before".[126] Austen Goslin of Polygon said that the title references a line by Doctor Strange to Tony Stark in Infinity War and a line by Stark in Age of Ultron. Goslin said, "The scene surrounding this line in Age of Ultron is one of the most important ones in the movie. Things look dark, and the group of heroes face an enemy they don't think they can defeat." The Endgame trailer "mirrors this perfectly", and "shows us that the Avengers' two most prominent characters are who they've always been: Iron Man, a pessimist who keeps fighting no matter how hopeless things look, and Captain America, an optimist who believes that nothing is hopeless when the world's heroes fight together."[128] The trailer was viewed 289 million times in its first 24 hours and was the most-viewed trailer in that time period, surpassing the record of Avengers: Infinity War (230 million views). It set a record for Twitter conversation for a film trailer in the first 24 hours, generating 549,000 mentions.[129] By January 3, 2019, BoxOffice's "Trailer Impact" metric service indicated that 77 to 78 percent of people surveyed who viewed the Endgame trailer in the past three weeks had expressed interest in seeing the film. In the three weeks it was measured by the service, the trailer was number one for all and had the top two percent of respondents express interest in seeing the film since the service's introduction in March 2018.[130]
The second trailer for the film and its theatrical release poster were released on March 14, 2019. All 13 actors on the poster received top billing except for Danai Gurira, whose name appeared in the poster's bottom billing block with Benedict Wong, Jon Favreau, and Gwyneth Paltrow (none of whom appeared on the poster). Despite this, her exclusion from the top billing prompted criticism from some fans.[38][131] Petrana Radulovic of Polygon said that how an actor is credited on a poster "is a complex process" based on "dealing with agents, fees, and movie star demands."[38] Marvel Studios released an updated poster later that day, with Gurira in the top billing.[38][131] The second trailer was viewed 268 million times in the first 24 hours, becoming the second-most-viewed trailer in that time period (behind the first trailer).[132]
Release
Theatrical
Avengers: Endgame had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Convention Center on April 22, 2019.[133][134] Disney converted the convention center's Hall K for the film's premiere, working with Dolby and QSC Audio to install a 70-foot (21-metre) screen, Dolby Vision projectors, and a Dolby Atmos sound system. The convention center also held the red carpet arrival and after-party for the premiere.[134] The film was released in Australia, China, and other parts of Asia and Europe on April 24,[135] in the United Kingdom on April 25,[136] in the United States and India on April 26,[103][135] and in Russia on April 29[135] in IMAX and 3D.[137][138] It was originally scheduled to be released in the United States on May 3.[77] Radio Liberty alleged that the Russian government postponed the film's release in that country to promote Russian-produced films.[139] Avengers: Endgame is part of Phase Three of the MCU.[140]
Following the release of the second trailer for Marvel Studios' Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) on May 6, Marvel began showing it at the end of Endgame screenings with a message before the film from Far From Home star Tom Holland telling the audience to stay until the end of the credits to see the trailer.[141] In June, Feige announced that Avengers: Endgame would be re-released in theaters with seven minutes of new post-credits footage which included a Stan Lee tribute, an unfinished deleted scene, and the opening scene of Far From Home. A limited-edition poster would be given out at select theaters. The re-release began on June 28 in 1,040 theaters in the United States.[142][143]
Home media
The film was released for digital download by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on July 30, and on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on August 13.[144] Streaming became exclusive to Disney+ on November 12, 2021.[145] The digital and Blu-ray releases include behind-the-scenes featurettes, audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a blooper reel.[144] Despite being filmed with IMAX cameras and released in IMAX theaters in the 1.90:1 aspect ratio, the home-media release has the cropped 2.39:1 aspect-ratio version used for non-IMAX screenings.[146] The IMAX Enhanced version of the film was made available on Disney+ on November 12, 2021,[147] and it earned $107.8 million from DVD and Blu-ray sales in the US.[3]
