Looking back at Avengers: Endgame and its significance now, I’m glad the MCU decided to give it its final name instead of going with the тιтle is was originally announced with. The MCU timeline came to its first major conclusion with the events of Avengers: Endgame, which brought the Infinity Saga to an end and concluded the arcs of a vast number of important Marvel characters. Even 6 real-world years after the events of Endgame, it’s still affecting events in the MCU, and is still one of the most famous superhero movies of all time.
Given the scope and scale of Avengers: Endgame, it’s no surprise that there were a lot of moving parts when it came to setting up the Marvel movie and making it as special as it ended up being. One such element of this that’s easily overlooked is the film’s actual тιтle, since the name the film was originally announced with was very different to the final one, and arguably would’ve been less impactful for the MCU in more than one way when compared to Avengers: Endgame itself.
Avengers: Endgame Is One Of The Most MCU-Defining Movies Of All Time
It’s hard to overstate the significance of Avengers: Endgame to the MCU. As the MCU’s highest-grossing movie – and one of the largest grossing movies of all time – Avengers: Endgame is very much an emblem of the immense promise of the superhero genre, and a look at what is possible with its films when they manage to bottle lightning and provide something that embraces its unique storytelling potential to its fullest.
Avengers: Endgame made $2.7 billion in its worldwide box office, which is $700 million more than the MCU’s next highest-grossing movie, Avengers: Infinity War (as per The Numbers).
On a story level, Avengers: Endgame also efficiently and effectively wraps up the stories of its cast – and the entire Infinity Saga era of the MCU – balancing style and substance in the way it concludes the arcs of its biggest heroes, like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers. Ensuring all these different threads are tied up alone looks to have been no easy feat, but this is doubly true looking at the way in which the story nods to so many prior films, references, and major movie moments, feeling like a true celebration of the countless hours of screentime that came before.
Endgame is top-rated in terms of financial success, in terms of critical success – with both critics and broader audiences – and expanded what seemed possible for the MCU timeline specifically and the wider genre for good. While this presents some complications going forward – since it sets such an astronomically high bar for future installments in the franchise, and encouraged a sense that Endgame was the actual ending of sorts to the MCU – it also serves as an example of how the boundaries of what is possible for the franchise can be pushed, which hopefully will continue to happen in other releases too.
Avengers: Endgame’s Originally Announced Name Wouldn’t Have Carried The Same Weight
Though Avengers: Endgame is now one of the biggest names in the entire superhero movie world – and synonymous with the cream of the crop when it comes to the genre – it wasn’t originally announced with the name. Instead, the 2014 announcement of the MCU’s lineup gave Avengers: Endgame a logical but far less impactful тιтle, with Avengers: Infinity War Part II being announced and set up for a May 3, 2019 release date.
Interestingly, both the film’s name and release date ended up receiving tweaks. The fourth Avengers movie went from a May 3 release date to its final actual release date of April 26, 2019, and the film’s тιтle was eventually publicly changed to the final Avengers: Endgame after months of it being unтιтled following a 2016 update regarding both it and Avengers: Infinity War‘s тιтles that removed the part element altogether, drawing a bigger line between the two releases and ensuring that Infinity War didn’t just feel like a Part 1.
The Russo brothers explained this decision during this time, with Joe Russo stating that, “We wanted the movie to be very different and distinctive, you know. There’s certainly cross-pollination between characters and some story-arcs, but you know, the first movie is very clearly Avengers: Infinity War and, in time, we will reveal what the second film is.” This makes a lot of sense looking back, as the original тιтles arguably veer more into generic territory, whereas the final names for the respective films celebrate them as different releases while still underlining that Endgame is a final chapter of sorts.
Avengers: Endgame Is So Much More Than Just Infinity War Part 2
As Joe Russo stated years ago, Avengers: Infinity War is a very distinctive movie – as is Avengers: Endgame. The shared storyline of the movie duo certainly justified initially тιтling them as two matching parts, but keeping these тιтles ostensibly centers on them as two halves of a whole perhaps a little too much.
It also seems this approach could have focused in on the often divisive movie trend of splitting a film story into two sections solely for the sake of length, which has drawn ire with past movies before. Instead, altering the names helps put across that this is a very different scenario, as Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame arguably work as well as they do because of the way Infinity War ends, and because of the way Endgame delves into its aftermath and builds a path forward from there after what was initially a real-world year of waiting, and an even longer in-universe gap.
Indeed, a lot of the hype for Avengers: Endgame was built around its тιтle and the idea it conveys the end of an era. While Avengers: Infinity War Part II could have still done this to a degree, it seems like it would’ve struggled to have the unique appeal of its modern counterpart. As such, while we can’t definitely know how things would’ve changed, the name tweak looks to have at least helped put across the idea that Endgame was its own enтιтy as much as it was also follow up on story threads put across by Avengers: Infinity War.
Ultimately, I think the final тιтles are far better at summing up their respective releases than the original announced тιтles, and that this tweak may well have helped extra solidify the legacy of Avengers: Endgame as it is now all these years later. With that said, it’ll be interesting to see if the MCU ever decides to actually follow this тιтling convention, or if it will generally be used for placeholders in order to not have to reveal certain тιтles before their time.
Upcoming MCU Movies
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Thunderbolts*
- Release Date
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May 2, 2025
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps
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July 25, 2025
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Avengers: Doomsday
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May 1, 2026
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Spider-Man: Brand New Day
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July 31, 2026
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Avengers: Secret Wars
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May 7, 2027
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