Endgame Encore: another greedy cash grab from Disney?

With the re-release of Endgame officially being announced on August 24th and only coming out 3 months before Doomsday officially releases, it obviously appears that it is a coup to draw in old fans to become reintroduced into a universe they were once so in love with. There is a general consensus that the quality of Marvel movies has dropped, with the 5 lowest rated MCU movies of all time coming out in the 2020s (according to Rotten Tomatoes). Although this lapse in popularity/quality has certainly been damaging towards Disney, it doesn’t exactly mean that people don’t want Marvel anymore. After the late 2000s — 2010s craze over Marvel, many of the fans were tired of having to keep up to date with each release for over 10 years. When the last Avengers movie wrapped up the main story-line as well as many individual stories, it was the perfect time for many fans to finally take that long anticipated break from keeping up with each installment in the MCU. This was also aided by the release of Disney+ in 2019 and the push of trying to get people to subscribe to it by releasing Marvel shows (as opposed to movies) exclusively on the streaming site. Many people’s initial reaction to Endgame: Encore was calling it greedy to re-release the movie in anticipation for another upcoming film, but the real greed occurred when Disney decided to ruin the Marvel formula and exclusively release these sub-par series on their streaming service.

Although the events in 2020 may have ruined it for many Marvel fans for a long time, it has been proven just recently that they actually don’t have a problem pulling in an audience for big releases. Specifically, this year produced the release of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which grossed over 2.2 billion in the box office and emerged into the top 4 highest grossing movies of all time (Only beaten by the first two Avatar movies and Endgame). With the surprise of how much the new Spider-Man installment was able to gross, it is quite obvious that people are still interested in Marvel movies despite the large drought since Endgame in 2019 (with only one non Spider-Man movie grossing over $1 billion). Although it may seem like a giant cash grab to draw fans back in, the real robbery was the introduction of Disney+. Not only that, but Marvel fans have had enough time to recharge and be ready to still be interested in Marvel in 2026.