Post-credits scenes teasing future adventures have become a regular part of the modern blockbuster experience, and they have provided fans with a lot of excitement and fuel for speculation over the years… but one doesn’t always think a lot about their downsides. For one, there is always a gamble that you’ll end up leaving audiences on the hook for years waiting for satisfaction, but they can also accidentally create expectations that end up limiting the creativity of filmmakers. Following his experiences in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Gunn is an individual who knows a lot about these kinds of teases from personal experience, and it’s an education that he is keeping in mind as he works to shepherd the future of the DC Universe.
Last week, I attended a DC Studios presentation with DC Studios chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank, California, and one of the questions I asked the filmmakers was about movies and shows teasing upcoming canon events – particularly given the development approach that sees projects enter production not because of a fixed release schedule but because their scripts have been properly polished. Getting honest, Gunn acknowledged that post-credits scenes can be problematic, saying,
In terms of the teases, like those post-credit scenes, they can be a real nightmare. I've done things before where I've put in post-credit scenes, and, you know... Like writing Guardians 3, I wasn't really sure if Adam Warlock should be in it, but I fucking promised people, you know what I mean?
For those who don’t recall, James Gunn went a bit overboard when it came to end credits scenes in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. While the majority of films up to that point in the Marvel Cinematic Universe only had one or two coda sequences, the Guardians sequel included five. Arguably the most exciting was the tease that Ayesha was in the process of creating a perfect being for the Sovereign – a being she would name Adam.
There wasn’t anything in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 that explicitly said “Adam Warlock will make his first appearance in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3,” but James Gunn still recognized that he had created a contract of sorts with the audience by teasing the character’s birth. He felt obligated to feature him in the sequel (in which he is played by Will Poulter), but there were points in developing the film that he didn’t quite fit into the story that Gunn wanted to tell. He continued,
I'm writing the script and things change, and I'm like, 'Hmm. He's kind of... you know, cramming him in there. 'And I like him in the movie, I like the character, but it made it a little less elegant in some ways, the film. And so I'm really careful about those sorts of promises that we don't know that we can deliver, you know?
Obviously this doesn’t mean that James Gunn’s new film, Superman, won’t feature end credits scenes – but we now know going into the Man of Steel’s latest cinematic adventure that any teases of the future the movie may contain were given special consideration before their inclusion in the finished cut.
Starring David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Nicholas Hoult, Nathan Fillion, Isabela Merced, Edi Gathegi, and more, Superman will be arriving in theaters on July 11 – and you can be sure that when it does, we here at CinemaBlend will be analyzing every implication for the future of the DC Universe that it includes.
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