How do you top the legendary shawarma scene at the end of The Avengers? You don’t, according to director Joss Whedon and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. They claim that Avengers: Age of Ultron – in theaters May 1, 2015 – will be the first Marvel Studios film without a post-credits sequence.
“There is nothing at the very end. And that’s not a fake-out,” Whedon told Entertainment Weekly. “We want people to know so they don’t sit there for 10 minutes and then go: ‘Son of a b****! I’ll kill them!’”
Since the first Marvel Studios film, Iron Man, introduced the idea of a multi-film crossover with its post-credits sequence, audiences have waiting patiently at the end of every Marvel movie, waiting for the another tease, or at least a funny gag. They won’t go home disappointed, however. They’re getting their tease before the credits finish rolling this time.
“There will be a tag,” Kevin Feige insisted, referring to a mid-credits sequences. “But there’s not a post-post-credit scene.”
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Although post-credits scenes were nothing new by the time Marvel Studios came around (see also: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Masters of the Universe), the interconnectivity of their films made the post-credits sequences an effective tool to set up future films and plot developments in their “Phase 1,” establishing films like Thor and The Avengers months before the movies actually came out. In Marvels’ “Phase 2,” however, most of the post-credits scenes have simply been jokes. Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World and Guardians of the Galaxy were amusing, but only Captain America: The Winter Soldier seemed to properly set up future films in the series.
With Avengers: Age of Ultron helping to set up Marvel’s “Phase 3,” which will include sequels to Captain America and Thor, as well as new solo films featuring superheroes like Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Captain Marvel, it seems unlikely that the mid-credits tag won’t offer some kind of meaningful tease about future events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And we’re willing to bet that many audience members are going to stick around until the very end anyway, just in case Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige are having a go at us, or change their minds at the last minute.
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and the host of The B-Movies Podcast and The Blue Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
