Gearing up for Avengers: Doomsday? Of course you are – it’s only a few months now until the long-awaited MCU blowout hits the big screen, including the return of Robert Downey Jr, this time as Doctor Victor von Doom. And to get everyone in the mood, Marvel has put the knockout finale of the Infinity Saga back into cinemas as Avengers: Endgame Encore, featuring a few additional scenes and tidbits to get your brain whirring for what comes next.
As well as featuring clues, story threads, and surprise characters, the four new Encore scenes are meant to act as the perfect warmup for Doomsday – and Empire got to ask returning directors Joe and Anthony Russo all about them. Here’s what they teased out…
Loki interrupts Steve and Peggy’s domestic bliss
EMPIRE: With this new beat, you’re crashing straight into the end of Endgame. Can you talk about that decision?
Anthony Russo: We really thought about that ending [in Endgame] as the perfect ending for Steve Rogers. And the idea of just going one moment past that perfect ending, and thinking about how radically that moment can change by just taking one step past it… That was a big part of the delight in the new idea for what Doomsday is and where the story goes.
Joe Russo: Yeah. The Marvel Universe is a giant experiment, and has been for years. I think part of the fun of coming back was, we thought, ‘Could we reach back to pull the story forward?’ And nobody’s done that before. Nobody’s ever had an opportunity to do it before. And this is a fluid universe, right? So you could do it in this universe, and it felt like an interesting way to start the story of Doomsday.
One of the delights of Doomsday is, you’re going to get a new incarnation of Loki.
The final line of Endgame is Steve saying to Sam: “No, I don’t think I will”, regarding the story of his life with Peggy. Is that because his story would be, “Well, we were having a lovely dance, and then literally 30 seconds later, the God of Mischief showed up, and it all went horribly wrong after that…”
Anthony Russo: You know what? We can’t say yes to that. [laughs] Because when we made Endgame, we were very much thinking about it as an ending. That was our creative limitation that we gave ourselves – to really make the most of that movie because our creativity had been working continuously at a narrative level, flowing from movie to movie, and we wanted to think about Endgame differently. We wanted to give ourselves a different lens to look at these characters through. And so we were very committed to it being an ending. It was many years later before the idea – this idea, that we actually committed to – came up, on how to move past that moment. A big motivation for releasing Avengers: Endgame Encore is the idea that, now we’re looking back at that movie thinking about going forward, instead of not thinking about going forward.
Talk to me as well about matching that Endgame scene, because you have to make Chris and Hayley look exactly the same as they did seven years ago.
Joe Russo: We had to do a bit of that in Endgame. There were moments like [Chris] Pratt dancing that we had to go back, and reimagine a scene from a different perspective, or carry a scene forward, or show you something you didn’t see from that scene. And we like that concept. We like that it’s that Rashomon [thing] – how do you look at this from a different point of view? How do you bring a different point of view to it? The magic is done with makeup. Evans and Hayley both look incredible, so it wasn’t difficult, I’ll say that.
Did you have to recreate the same lenses, the same set?
Joe Russo: Yeah. Same lighting, same lenses, same set. We do all of it.
One different thing is, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki crashes the party. What can you say at this point in time about Loki’s presence in this, given where we know he is in the MCU at this current point in time?
Anthony Russo: I mean, look, the God of Mischief proves to be the God of Mischief. Loki’s one of the most fascinating characters, and he’s had so many incarnations. One of the delights of Doomsday is, you’re going to get a new incarnation of that character.
The scenes we see here today in Encore, we won’t see these in Doomsday? These are specifically shot to bridge the gap, is that correct?
Joe Russo: Yeah, that’s right.
Hulk gets Doom’d
We see Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner deep underground, being paid a visit by Doctor Doom, who we hear off camera. What might that scene tell us about Doomsday?
Joe Russo: [laughs] Anth, I’ll let you handle that… I haven’t thought through it in a way where you can step around the [spoilers].
Anthony Russo: There’s really no way to step around that. You know us. We’re just fighting ourselves to save the presents for Christmas morning.
Joe Russo: Now, somebody pays [Banner] a visit, in what he thinks is perhaps the most secure place on the planet. And clearly he’s there dealing with the trauma and the fallout from what happened in Brand New Day, and trying to protect the world from him. And somebody found him…
We will not confirm nor deny Mark Ruffalo’s appearance in Doomsday.
That somebody would seem to be Doctor Doom. We hear him say something along the lines of, ‘I’ve come to collect you.’ Can you shed any light on what that might mean? Because there is a thread running through the footage you guys have released about people ‘living stolen lives’. Banner doesn’t seem to be living a stolen life. So, what would Doom’s interest be in him at this point?
Anthony Russo: Gosh, you’re really making us sweat here.
I can see a single bead of sweat dripping down, just like Total Recall.
Joe Russo: I mean, look, his interest may extend beyond just Banner. So, that’s what we’ll say about that.
Okay. Because Ruffalo was not one of the names on the chair reveal.
Joe Russo: Yeah, you’ve got to save some surprises. [laughs]
We have already had some surprises – we’ve had Chris Evans, we’ve had Hayley Atwell. Is this sting confirmation that Ruffalo will be in Doomsday?
Joe Russo: I think [what] we could say is, [Banner] is certainly involved in the story that revolves around Doom. We will not confirm nor deny his appearance in Doomsday.
Anthony Russo: The farthest we can go is to say, there are characters and actors who have not been announced, who are a part of Doomsday.
The multiverse collapses
The TVA sequence is fascinating. We see Ke Huy Quan as Ouroboros, we see Owen Wilson as Mobius, we see the TVA tech guy from Deadpool & Wolverine as well. What can you say about the significance of that sequence? You have OB literally saying that the multiverse is collapsing. So is that, in a way, the most crucial new sequence?
Joe Russo: It’s the most profound thing that’s ever happened to the MCU. It is the perceived end of times. Everything the TVA was set up to do is to protect the timelines from collapsing, and now they’re in a catastrophic collapse. And so that scene, I would argue, yes, has a great level of importance. I wouldn’t say that it is more important than another scene. But it is certainly critical to the storytelling of Doomsday.
Anthony Russo: It is the unifying principle of combining the X-Men universe, the Avengers universe, the Fantastic Four universe. That is at the heart of the collision of these universes.
There are clues in Endgame, things that are said, that will pay off in Doomsday.
We get a sense of that, watching the computer screens with these universes literally fighting each other to stay alive. Is that, again, a hint as to what’s going to happen in Doomsday?
Joe Russo: Everything is premeditated. Every inch of footage that you see has some relevance in some way. There are clues in every piece of that new footage, that can lead you to a greater story in Doomsday.
Are you saying I need to go see the footage again?
Joe Russo: It’s up to you. I mean, I would argue if you’re gonna go see it, who knows if this movie will ever be back in theatres? This was a request of ours to go back into the movie, and really push this film back out again. Because one of the greatest sights of our lives was getting to stand there at the back of a theatre on opening night of Avengers: Endgame, and all the work we’d done over seven years, all that hard work paying off. The energy felt like a rock concert. That sense of community, everybody sharing that story together. And there’s a generation that has only seen it from their couch, or their living room. And people like to go see these movies with family members, and with children and with grandparents. This is just one more opportunity for them to go out and have a communal experience again. Movies are, frankly, one of the only things left that really truly bind us and give us shared experiences. That, sporting events, concerts, you know. And so to have an opportunity to take a movie like this, that really galvanised people, we’re excited, and we really wanted that opportunity to be there again for the audience.
Doom masks up
The very last thing we hear at the end of Endgame is Tony banging the anvil that led to the creation of Iron Man. And now that has been morphed, warped into the creation of Doom. What can you say about that little brief flash of Doom?
Joe Russo: It’s been planned all along. [laughs]
Anthony Russo: It’s almost like the same actor is playing both characters! [laughs]
Joe Russo: There is certainly a symmetry at play here. There is an interesting examination of good and evil at play. And I think that that scene at the end, obviously it’s intended to be almost identical. It’s because there’s a duality being explored.
I’m fascinated to explore whether choices that are made in Endgame – by Tony and others – pave the way in some way for Doom, and what’s to come. But we’re out of time!
Joe Russo: I will say this: there are clues in Endgame, things that are said, that will pay off in Doomsday. So if you want to go back and revisit the movie again – not the new footage but lines that are said in the movie – [there are some] that have an impact on Doomsday.
Avengers: Endgame Encore is in cinemas now. Avengers: Doomsday comes to UK cinemas from December 16.
