AVENGERS
ENDGAME

FROM PART 2 TO ITS OWN FILM

HOW ENDGAME BECAME A SEPARATE FILM

Marvel announced the film in October 2014 as Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2, hired the Russo brothers as directors in April 2015 and signed Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to write both parts the next month. The Russos renamed the films in May 2016 to correct the impression that they were one story split in two, and Marvel left the second film untitled that July. The title Avengers: Endgame and the 26 April 2019 US date were revealed with the first trailer in December 2018. The film had earlier been due on 3 May.

BACK TO BACK WITH INFINITY WAR

HOW THE FILM WAS SHOT

Principal photography began on 10 August 2017 under the working title Mary Lou 2 at Pinewood Atlanta Studios in Georgia and wrapped on 11 January 2018, shot back to back with Infinity War. Trent Opaloch was director of photography, and the film was shot on ARRI Alexa IMAX 2D cameras. Re-shoots ran from 7 September to 12 October 2018, with more in January 2019. The budget was $356 million to $400 million, and Alan Silvestri composed the score.

The first trailer drew 289 million views in 24 hours, a record at the time, and Marvel kept the dead characters out of its marketing.

NO POST-CREDITS SCENE

WHY THE RUSSOS SAY THIS IS THE ENDING

On 30 April 2019, Joe Russo explained why the film has no post-credits scene:

“It was called Endgame for a reason. This is it. This is the ending.”

Joe Russo, 30 April 2019

Anthony Russo added in the same interview that it was “the first Marvel movie we’ve done where we weren’t thinking about the future.” A re-release on 28 June 2019 added about seven minutes of post-credits footage, including a Stan Lee tribute.

THE BIGGEST OPENING OF ALL TIME

HOW THE FILM OPENED AND WHAT IT EARNED

The film premiered at the Los Angeles Convention Center on 22 April 2019 and opened in Australia and parts of Asia and Europe on 24 April, before reaching the US on 26 April. Its US opening weekend of $357,115,007 was almost exactly $100 million more than Infinity War’s debut. The worldwide opening was $1.2 billion, and it reached $2 billion in 11 days.

The original release earned $2.799 billion worldwide, of which $858.4 million came from the US. It became the highest-grossing film of all time in 2019 until Avatar overtook it through a 2021 China re-release.

THE REWATCH

A 94% CRITICS SCORE AND A BEST VISUAL EFFECTS NOMINATION

Rotten Tomatoes lists a 94% critics’ score from 553 reviews and a 96% audience score, and its consensus calls the film “exciting, entertaining, and emotionally impactful.” Metacritic gives it 78 from 57 critics. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an A+, and it was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 92nd Academy Awards.

In the Marvel Marathon it sits in the MCU release order and MCU movies in order guides between Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the Marvel movies in release order guide it comes between Captain Marvel and X-Men: Dark Phoenix, and in the Spider-Man movies in order guide between Venom and Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the MCU timeline guide it follows Avengers: Infinity War and precedes Loki Season 1.