James Gunn Hopes To Avoid 'Nightmare' Post-Credit Scenes

We are a few years shy of the Iron Man movie’s twentieth anniversary. Twenty years! I still can’t wrap my head around it. It feels like yesterday and forever ago. The film helped kickstart a scrappy film studio with one of the least popular characters available in its arsenal. Tony Stark became an international phenomenon afterward. Robert Downey Jr.’s career was thrust back into the spotlight. Superhero films have reigned supreme, and so have after-credits scenes.

I still remember the Regal employee at the theater coming in at the top of the credits to say, “Make sure you stay in your seats!” He said it with the inflection of someone trying to keep audience members from making a huge mistake. I don’t think it was Marvel-mandated, either. Most theater employees hang back until the credits are over so they can come in and clean whatever mess the jackals have left behind. This guy came in like there was a fire coming, and people still didn’t listen. Now, if an MCU movie is played, you have to force people to leave.

Many post-credits scenes appear after the first round of credits that are tossed at the end of movies. The scenes can range from being a punchline for a joke set-up in the film to a tease of things to come. They can also be pointless. No jokes or new information, just a retread of a tease of a hint. Some don’t even amount to anything despite promising the world (or at least a new character or two). That’s one aspect James Gunn is trying to avoid.

Gunn and co-CEO of DC Studios Peter Safran had a chat with reporters recently in which they gave updates about plans for DC’s slate of films. Some things have stalled, some are moving more quickly than expected, and no, Robert Pattinson won’t be their Batman so stop asking. During the talk, Safran noted how Gunn would oversee all the stories to ensure connectivity. They want to keep things in line and not put the cart before the horse. To help that, they may avoid post-credits scenes when they can.

“[Post-credits scenes] can be a real nightmare,” Gunn explained to reporters. “Like writing Guardians 3 and I wasn’t really sure if Adam Warlock should be in it. But I f***ing promised people. You know what I mean? And I’m like, ‘Oh, well, now I’m writing the script and things change.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m kind of 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.” Gunn specifically emphasized the “don’t know.”

It’s fun to hear Gunn talk about frustrating aspects of superhero filmmaking in his post-MCU days. Between lamenting post-credits scenes and emphasizing that they won’t shoot a movie until the script is complete, it sounds like the man was left scarred by his time at the studio and brought that frustration with him. It even feels beyond him shaking up norms or anything like that. He just wants to make movies instead of chapters. If that means fewer post-credits scenes, I’m all for it.