Avengers: Endgame, which still represents the pinnacle of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for many fans, was released in theaters six years ago today, and Marvel has shared a new 40-second teaser highlighting some of the most memorable moments (and there are a few) from the movie's epic final battle between Earth's Mightiest Heroes and the Man Titan, Thanos.
Among other things, this extended sequence features Captain America lifting Thor's hammer Mjölnir, Iron Man's noble sacrifice, and, of course, the "Portals" scene.
During the climactic battle, Thanos manages to defeat Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America - but Steve Rogers isn't about to stay down. As the Sentinel of Liberty dusts himself off and prepares to fight until his last breath, he hears Sam Wilson's familiar "on your left," and turns around to see Black Panther and the rest of the recently-revived heroes assembling through Doctor Strange and Wong's mystical portals.
This moment has had such a lasting impact that it might be difficult to imagine it playing out any other way, but co-director Joe Russo recently revealed that the original idea for the scene was quite different - and he had to fight for the version we saw in the finished film.
"There was probably some debate regarding the most famous moment, I think, of all the Marvel films, which is the portals opening at the end of Avengers: Endgame," Russo told Empire.
According to the filmmaker, instead of witnessing the heroes arrive through the portals, we'd have seen "the camera rotate around Steve Rogers and everybody was collected behind him."
"I remember fighting that one for months in the edit room," Russo added. "I'm not going to say who was one what side, but that was a grinder. I remember [Anthony] and I going, '[frick] it, we're going to shoot it during reshoots."
It seems writer Stephen McFeely was one of the people involved with bringing the film to the screen who wanted to stick with the first version of the scene, as he "thought the first cut worked pretty well."
"One of the lessons I've learned over the course of working with these guys and working with Marvel is emotional-logic trumps logic-logic. It's not a cop-out. It's what the movie wants. It's what your audience wants," he added.
Check out the new teaser below, and let us know if you plan on re-watching Avengers: Endgame today to mark its 6-year anniversary.
Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on May 1, 2026, followed by Avengers: Secret Wars on May 7, 2027. Both films will be directed by the Russo brothers, who also make their MCU return after helming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.
"Being able to create stories and explore characters within the Marvel Universe fulfilled a life-long dream of ours, and we discovered a powerful connection with audiences in each film that we made. We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with Kevin, Lou and the entire Marvel team to bring this epic adventure in storytelling to new and surprising places for both the fans and ourselves”, said The Russos in a statement after the SDCC panel.
You can check out the full (for now) Doomsday cast list below.
• Paul Rudd as Ant-Man
• Simu Liu as Shang-Chi
• Tom Hiddleston as Loki
• Lewis Pullman as Sentry
• Florence Pugh as Yelena
• Danny Ramirez as Falcon
• Ian McKellen as Magneto
• Sebastian Stan as Bucky
• Winston Duke as M’Baku
• Chris Hemsworth as Thor
• Kelsey Grammer as Beast
• James Marsden as Cyclops
• Channing Tatum as Gambit
• Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent
• Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm
• Rebecca Romijn as Mystique
• Patrick Stewart as Professor X
• Alan Cumming as Nightcrawler
• Letitia Wright as Black Panther
• Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor
• Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards
• Hannah John-Kamen as Ghost
• Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm
• David Harbour as Red Guardian
• Robert Downey Jr as Doctor Doom
• Ebon Moss-Bachrach as The Thing
• Anthony Mackie as Captain America