Doomsday wasn't the first time Chris Evans was asked to return

Avengers: Endgame was the end of an era, bringing the story to the end of a decade. Many actors saw this as a natural jumping-off point, leaving their characters behind to explore other avenues.

Now, some big names are coming back, with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans joining the cast of Avengers: Doomsday. While it's a big return for both actors, Marvel didn't want to take so long to bring Chris Evans' Steve Rogers back to the big screen, and has been pitching him ideas for new projects for the past eight years.

Despite getting the perfect ending in Avengers: Endgame, Marvel wanted Steve Rogers back in the movies right away.

Captain America Steve Rogers Chris Evans

Evans confirmed this in an interview with EW, revealing that he received “dozens” of pitches to return to Marvel before finally agreeing to be in Avengers: Doomsday.

“Over the course of eight years, I've heard at least a dozen pitches,” says Evans. “And they were all wonderful. It never felt right.”

In fact, Pitches started almost as soon as Evans was done with Endgame, so I guess his big, climactic, tear-jerky ending in that film wasn't supposed to be a big send-off after all.

“When we finished Endgame in 2018, Lou [D’Esposito] And Kevin [Feige] Took me out to dinner and they were like, 'We want to keep doing movies with Steve Rogers as Nomad.

Nomad is one of Steve Rogers' alter egos, so this would still allow the mantle of Captain America to pass to Sam Wilson. Still, Evans kept putting it off — until he learned that Downey Jr. was also returning.

Avengers: Doomsday has a lot going on. Culturally, the series has lost its grip on us by the time Endgame hits theaters, so it already feels like a much lesser event than the last Avengers movie. Not only does Doomsday pay everyone back, but it also pays off everything that's been set up in the last few years of movies and TV shows — while still, presumably, being accessible to those of us who haven't been in the loop. Joining the X-Men team, don't even get all the nods to movies from the 00s.