Avengers: Endgame Encore took the top spot at the global box office with $86 million, and only four minutes of extra footage helped it crush superhero fatigue. The 2019 blockbuster returned after seven years away, and the reunion looked warmer than most family gatherings. Fans arrived with popcorn and theories, while newer releases checked their numbers. Bonus minutes had people buying tickets for a story they already knew by heart.

While the numbers look like a victory lap, the full weekend chart shows who got left staring at the taillights.

Avengers: Endgame Encore won the weekend because four fresh minutes gave a seven-year-old film a new reason to sell tickets, which answers superhero fatigue with a straight face. Its lifetime total now reads $2.885 billion, and that keeps the crown of highest-grossing film of all time in place. Resident Evil took second place with $50.3 million in its second week, while Brad Pitt's Heart of the Beast followed at $50.1 million.

The extra minutes were filmed during Avengers: Doomsday production and bring back Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, Tom Hiddleston as Loki, and Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Loki crashes Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter's dance in a TVA uniform, while another scene shows two Earths colliding in an incursion. A post-credits moment finds Banner in a bunker until Doom breaks in, and Doom forges his mask to a familiar clang.

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While the new scenes tease a multiverse in trouble, the bigger question is whether skipping them leaves fans lost.

Yes, Avengers: Endgame Encore counts as homework before Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theaters on December 18. Joe Russo calls the re-release required viewing, and he describes a natural progression from Avengers: Endgame into Avengers: Doomsday that also takes in all the other stories playing out. The four minutes work as a bridge between the Infinity Saga and the Multiversal Saga, so skipping them means entering Avengers: Doomsday with a missing page or two.

Russo adds that seeing Endgame on a big screen is plenty of fun. The mask scene adds a wrinkle because the clang matches the sound that closed the original film and hints at mirrored origins for Doom and Iron Man, even though Robert Downey Jr. plays both. The incursion scene may explain how the X-Men characters from Fox's universe reach the main timeline. It turns out superhero fatigue was no match for four minutes of bonus footage and an $86 million weekend.

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What are your thoughts on four extra minutes beating superhero fatigue? Let us know in the comments.