Robert Redford Returned From Retirement for One Final Blockbuster and It Earned a 94 Percent Rotten Tomatoes Score

Robert Redford spent more than six decades building one of Hollywood’s most distinguished careers, starring in classics ranging from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to The Sting. By 2018, however, the Oscar-winning filmmaker was ready to step away from acting.

Redford announced around the release of The Old Man & the Gun that he intended to retire from performing. Yet his retirement came with one memorable exception. The Hollywood legend returned for a brief appearance in 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, reprising his Marvel role in what became his final live-action feature-film appearance.

Redford Announced His Retirement in 2018

Redford was 81 when he told Entertainment Weekly in 2018 that he was moving toward retirement from acting.

His starring role in David Lowery’s The Old Man & the Gun, opposite Casey Affleck and Sissy Spacek, was widely promoted as his farewell performance.

Redford subsequently softened the certainty of his retirement comments, telling People that announcing his departure had been a mistake because people should “never say never.”

That qualification proved appropriate.

One year later, audiences unexpectedly saw Redford again in the biggest movie of 2019.

Avengers Endgame Brought Him Back to Marvel

Redford made a cameo appearance as Alexander Pierce in Avengers: Endgame.

Marvel fans had previously seen him play Pierce in 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Initially introduced as a senior government official and longtime associate of Nick Fury, Pierce was ultimately revealed to be a major figure within HYDRA.

His role gave The Winter Soldier an unusual connection to the political thrillers that had been an important part of Redford’s earlier career.

When Endgame revisited events surrounding 2012’s The Avengers through time travel, filmmakers found an opportunity to bring Pierce back.

The cameo was brief, but it allowed Redford to make one final live-action appearance in a major Hollywood production.

His Cameo Appeared During Endgame’s Time Travel Story

Avengers: Endgame begins after Thanos wipes out half of all life at the conclusion of Avengers: Infinity War.

The surviving Avengers eventually develop a plan to travel into their own past and recover the Infinity Stones before Thanos can use them.

That storyline sends Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner and Scott Lang back to New York during the events of The Avengers.

It is during this sequence that Redford’s Alexander Pierce appears.

The moment offered another connection between Endgame and earlier Marvel Cinematic Universe films while giving longtime movie fans the unexpected sight of Redford returning after his retirement announcement.

Endgame Became a Historic Box Office Success

If Redford was going to briefly return to acting, he could hardly have selected a bigger movie.

Avengers: Endgame opened in April 2019 and became a global phenomenon. According to Box Office Mojo, it ultimately earned approximately $2.8 billion worldwide.

That total allowed Endgame to temporarily surpass James Cameron’s Avatar as the highest-grossing movie in worldwide box-office history.

Avatar subsequently reclaimed the record following later theatrical rereleases, but Endgame remains among the most commercially successful films ever produced.

Critics Also Embraced the Marvel Epic

The extraordinary commercial performance was accompanied by overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Avengers: Endgame holds a 94 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, placing it among the best-reviewed installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The film also has an 8.4 out of 10 user rating on IMDb.

Critics particularly praised the movie for bringing more than a decade of interconnected Marvel storytelling to an emotional conclusion while providing major sendoffs for characters including Tony Stark and Steve Rogers.

The film also received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Redford Had Already Built a Legendary Career

Of course, Redford’s legacy was secure decades before he entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

His partnership with Paul Newman produced two enduring classics, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969 and The Sting in 1973.

Other major films included The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, All the President’s Men, The Natural and Out of Africa.

Redford also became an acclaimed director. His feature directorial debut, Ordinary People, won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1981, while Redford himself received the Oscar for Best Director.

Beyond acting and directing, his influence extended to independent cinema through the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival.

Endgame Was Not Technically His Final Performance

There is one important qualification when describing Avengers: Endgame as Redford’s final movie.

It was his final live-action feature-film appearance, but not the last time his voice was heard in a movie.

Redford subsequently provided the voice of Lokia the Dolphin Monster in the unconventional 2020 anthology film Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia.

That means Endgame represents the final time Redford physically appeared on screen in a feature film rather than his absolute final acting credit.

A Remarkable Final Live Action Appearance

Few performers finish their live-action film careers in a production as enormous as Avengers: Endgame.

Redford had already spent decades working with filmmakers such as George Roy Hill, Sydney Pollack and Alan J. Pakula and had established himself as both a Hollywood leading man and an important force behind independent filmmaking.

His brief return as Alexander Pierce therefore became an unusual final chapter.

After indicating that The Old Man & the Gun would conclude his acting career, Redford made one more live-action appearance. That movie went on to earn nearly $2.8 billion worldwide and secure a 94 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics score.

For an actor whose career included some of American cinema’s most celebrated films, appearing one final time in one of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters was a fittingly memorable way to leave the screen.

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