Avengers Endgame’s Encore ending sets up a precedent the MCU could regret

Well, this is a bit of a stunner. Marvel have decided that Avengers Endgame wasn’t quite finished after all, and they’ve meddled with the ending for this year's re-release, Avengers Endgame: Encore. Remember Captain America’s lovely send-off – the bittersweet era-defining dance with Peggy Carter? That's not where it ends anymore. If you’ve caught the extended cut, you’ll have noticed things take a swerve with everyone’s favourite mischief-maker waltzing in at the last second.

Avengers Endgame: Encore topped the weekend box office despite being a re-release with an altered ending.

The New Scene Nobody Asked For

So, what’s changed? Instead of Cap and Peggy twirling away into a life of filtered Instagram nostalgia, we now get TVA agent Loki – yes, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki, fresh from bureaucracy-infused time shenanigans – popping up to offer this couple a bit of 'help.' If that noise you hear is the sound of continuity getting mangled, you’re not alone. It’s not just a throwaway cameo, either: director Anthony Russo reckons this moment is, and I’m not making this up, "where Doomsday is born."

Retcon Roulette

Now, I’m not saying retroactively altering the ending of one of the MCU’s proudest achievements is a wild gamble, but let’s just say it worked out about as often as spinning the roulette wheel. Sure, Evil Dead II managed a smart retcon, but most of the time it's Alien 3 and Jaws: The Revenge – famously wonky fixes that pleased no one.

The thing is, Endgame was already considered a success by every metric – box office, critics, fans, you name it. The Russos 'landed the plane' as they say, and Marvel basically had the easy job of letting this one be. Now, they’ve changed gears and the ending, all to tee up the next phase with Avengers: Doomsday. The fans? Strangely fine with it. Encore absolutely cleaned up at the box office last weekend, which probably gives Marvel ideas above their station for future updates. You can almost hear studio execs already eyeing up which classic conclusion to tinker with next.

The Precedent Problem

This is where it gets a bit dicey. If Marvel think they can just tinker with the past to suit their future films, we could see more and more of these 'Encore'-style releases. Will audiences come to expect studios to fix endings they didn’t like? Will bad fan reactions force a studio’s hand when something flops? It's a slippery slope and, frankly, one I’d rather not see Marvel barrel down on a gilded sledge made of recycled post-credits scenes. Endings are meant to be endings, not open shops for revision just to sell us more tickets.