Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 22 Jump Street is as much a follow-up to 21 Jump Street as it is a movie about how Hollywood actually treats and develops sequels. Playing in the same field as Gremlins 2: The New Batch and Airplane 2: The Sequel, the film never misses an opportunity to make some kind of meta gag or reference, be it the fancy new headquarters that can be afforded thanks to an increased budget or the fact that Jenko and Schmidt have to track down the source of yet another synthetic drug because of how well things worked out last time. These jokes are sprinkled liberally through the entire thing and earn their laughs, but one would be hard pressed to argue that the funniest of them all comes at the very end. I am, of course, talking about the end credits sequence.
SPOILER WARNING: The following will not reveal or ruin any specific details from the central plot of 22 Jump Street, but, as alluded to, I will be discussing one of the film’s funniest parts. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and wish to keep everything a surprise, I would suggest heading back HERE.
While most of 22 Jump Street makes fun of first sequels, the end credits instead takes full aim at franchise filmmaking as a whole and the results are spectacular. Deciding to drop the "young undercover cops" routine and instead just focus on the idea that Jenko and Schmidt specialize in educational settings (except for maybe 40 Jump Street: The Retirement Home), the sequence throws absolutely every idea that could be thought of at the wall while featuring amazing cameos and still poking fun at the studio system (the best being Seth Rogen taking over the role of Schmidt due to contract disputes with Jonah Hill on 29 Jump Street: Sunday School).
Perhaps one of the most surprising things about the end credits, however, is that the original version of the movie actually had a completely different conclusion that was supposed to be a funny joke but instead was taken by some audience members as being too sad. Our own Gabe Toro asked Phil Lord and Chris Miller about the ending at a press event held for the film earlier this month, and you can watch their response in the video below:
The end credits also do their part to basically confirm that a 22 Jump Street sequel will never happen, if not just because it seems the filmmakers behind the series have absolutely zero interest in making another one. All the same, though, watching the sequence it’s not hard to imagine some of the weird and awesome opportunities for laughs that each one of the fictional films could provide. Certainly I wouldn’t be the only one who would laugh if Jonah Hill let Seth Rogen take his place temporarily, right? 33 Jump Street: Generations would also be great not only because of the return of Richard Grieco’s Booker, but maybe even Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise sporting some killer zombie makeup. None of these movies will ever get made, but if you had to choose one that could, which would it be? Answer our poll and tell us what you thought of the end credits in the comments section below!
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