Disney Officially Launches Avengers: Endgame Oscar Campaign

Walt Disney Studios' For Your Consideration website now has a placeholder page for Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame, indicating its intentions to submit the Anthony and Joe Russo-directed blockbuster for awards consideration alongside Guy Ritchie's live-action Aladdin, Disney-Pixar's Toy Story 4, the Jon Favreau-directed re-imagining of The Lion King and Walt Disney Animation Studios' upcoming Frozen II. The studio will host Endgame screenings in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and London, with screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely participating in a Q&A session following a screening at the Writers Guild Theater on October 1.

Disney has yet to announce its submissions, but the studio could back a campaign for longtime Iron Man star Robert Downey Jr. for Best Actor consideration. Joe Russo previously told Backstory Magazine Downey gave "an awards-caliber performance" in his final turn as Tony Stark.

Now the director hopes to see Downey take home the top acting prize for his "profound performance" given as part of his swan song for a role Downey's filled since 2008's Iron Man.

"We don't make movies for awards. Yes, making this was exceedingly difficult. We made the two most expensive movies ever back-to-back. But I just want to stump for one thing, and that's Robert Downey," Russo recently told The Daily Beast. "I don't know if I have ever seen — in movie history — a global audience react to a performance the way they did to Robert Downey in that movie. There were people bawling in movie theaters, hyperventilating. I mean, that is a profound performance, when you can touch audiences all over the world to that degree. We've never seen anything like that, and if that doesn't deserve an Oscar, I don't know what does."

Endgame — which toppled James Cameron's Avatar over the summer to become the highest-grossing film of all time with a global take of $2.79 billion — signaled the culmination of the first 11-year chapter of the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe. It also marked time for Downey and frequent co-star Chris Evans, who played Captain America, to get off the proverbial bus.

"We had to get off. We opted to, and knew it was part of the job to get off the bus while it rolled on to other destinations," Downey said in an August issue of Disney twenty-three magazine. "There's something very sobering about it. I'm glad he and I will be there to welcome others as they retire their jerseys."

Avengers: Endgame is available to own on Digital HD and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray.