Superman director James Gunn has revealed that the movie will feature a post-credits scene, but promises the DC feature won’t make a frequent Marvel mistake when it comes to the sequence in question.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has given the world great movies about amazing characters, while the franchise has also made the post-credits scene pretty much a necessity for big blockbusters, and especially superhero movies.
That’s resulted in some dramatic teases and fun gags for audience members willing to sit through the credits. But it has also led to some pretty pointless introductions, with characters and storylines set-up that never payoff.
We’re talking about the likes of Hercules, Eros, Pip the Troll, Binary, Blade, and all those many Kangs, who were seen, then quickly forgotten. And in a new interview about his forthcoming Superman movie, writer-director James Gunn has addressed this issue, and assured fans that he won’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
James Gunn reveals his post-credits scene philosophy before Superman
James Gunn confirmed Superman‘s post-credits scene by telling Entertainment Weekly: “I do love giving something back to the audience, so I will try to put something in the end credits for audiences to see, because I think it’s great. I love my crew, and I want you to stick around and see who the gaffers were.”
But he also revealed that he has a “philosophy about post-credits scenes,” that’s “somewhat related to my own mistakes in my time with Marvel.”
Gunn explains: “I did not like what I did in Guardians 2 where we set up Adam Warlock and we set up the Guardians of the Galaxy and we set up all this sh*t that I didn’t necessarily plan on.
“Well, I guess I kind of planned on fulfilling that promise, but you want to be careful about that. The way a post-credits scene works is a punch to the face, like, ‘Oh my God! Look at this.’ At times when you’re using it just solely to set something up, sometimes you’re screwing yourself over.
“It was not easy to work Adam Warlock into Guardians 3. I loved working with Will, and I liked dealing with the character, but at the end of the day, was he kind of fitting a weird square peg into a round hole? A little bit, yeah.”
Gunn also cites an example where he pushed back, refusing to make Thor part of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 after the character effectively joined the crew in the Avengers: Endgame post-credits scene.
And another example where it worked, concerning the Peacemaker scene at the end of his Suicide Squad movie. “I started shooting the Peacemaker show,” explains Gunn. “And then I shot [the post-credits scene] and then put it in there, so it was easy. I knew it was coming, so that was fine, but I got to be a little bit careful about it.”