"Avengers: Endgame" is a box office champion all over again. Marvel's re-release of the 2019 blockbuster, retitled "Avengers: Endgame Encore," topped the domestic charts this weekend, fending off three brand-new wide releases just three months before "Avengers: Doomsday" hits theaters.

The reissue opened Thursday night with $3.8 million in previews, then added $11.2 million on Friday alone, according to Variety's box office tracking. It closed out the three-day frame with roughly $26 million from 3,060 theaters, enough to finish first for the weekend, TheWrap reported, pushing the film's cumulative domestic haul to $884 million.

It was a genuinely crowded weekend at the multiplex: Sony's "Resident Evil" reboot came in close behind with $23.8 million, A24's crime drama "Primetime" opened to $20.5 million from 2,874 theaters, David Ayer's Brad Pitt action vehicle "Heart of the Beast" debuted with $20 million from 3,435 locations, and the animated "Forgotten Island" opened to $11.5 million. Four films clearing $20 million in the same frame is a rarity this late in September.

What's Actually New

The draw wasn't nostalgia alone. "Endgame Encore" splices in roughly four minutes of new footage shot during production of "Avengers: Doomsday," across four scenes, as NME detailed in a full breakdown. Loki, in Time Variance Authority garb, interrupts Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter's dance to recast himself as "guardian of the branching multiverse" — new context for Chris Evans' confirmed return as Steve Rogers in "Doomsday." A mid-credits scene shows Bruce Banner recording a video diary from a secret underground facility about a gamma-suppression serum, only to be interrupted by the voice of Robert Downey Jr.'s new villain: "I'm here to collect you." A separate end-credits sequence recuts the footage of Doom forging his mask, and a TVA scene with Mobius, O.B. and Casey reveals that the multiverse itself is collapsing.

The re-release also doubled as the launch title for Disney's new "Infinity Vision" premium-large-format certification, rolled out to roughly 75 U.S. theaters and 300 international locations. The timing wasn't incidental: "Doomsday" lost IMAX exclusivity at launch after "Dune: Part Three" locked up IMAX screens for its own three-week run in December.

"FROM OUR VIEW, WE FEEL IT'S A MARKETING PLAY TO TRY AND OFFSET THE FACT THAT THEY DON'T HAVE AN IMAX PLATFORM OR BRAND FOR AVENGERS." — IMAX CFO NATASHA FERNANDES

Disney has not publicly responded to Fernandes' comments, made on an after-market analyst call reported by multiple trade outlets.

"Avengers: Doomsday" — reuniting Downey Jr. in a new role opposite Evans' returning Captain America and much of the extended Marvel ensemble — opens December 18 in the U.S. and December 16 in the U.K. Whether "Endgame Encore" keeps legs through October, or fades once the novelty of the bonus scenes wears off, will be one of the box office's more-watched subplots heading into the holiday corridor.