Marvel Studios may be smarter than we all give them credit for. Detractors to the comic book movie making behemoth have been critical for the seemingly mandatory inclusion of the post-credits sequence in virtually every movie they have made. The trend has spread to other franchises including X-MEN, FAST AND FURIOUS, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and more. Hell, even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. features a stinger scene at the end of each weekly episode!
But, AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON director Joss Whedon and studio honcho Kevin Feige have decided that the superhero team-up this summer will not have a stinger just to keep the streak alive. Whedon shared this in an interview with Entertainment Weekly about why there was no way to top the famous shwarama scene.
“It didn’t seem to lend itself in the same way, and we wanted to be true to what felt right,” Whedon says. “The first rule of making a sequel is take the best moments and do something else. Don’t do the Indiana Jones gun trick again differently. Just go somewhere else. Don’t try to hit the same highs, because people will sense it.”
While there will be a scene after the credits start rolling, Feige confirmed there is nothing after that. Whedon wanted to be extra clear about that.
“There is nothing at the very end. And that’s not a fake-out,” Whedon says. “We want people to know so they don’t sit there for 10 minutes and then go: ‘Son of a bitch! I’ll kill them!’”
I am glad that Joss Whedon is approaching AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON from a fan standpoint and is trying to avoid the tropes and cliches that have doomed sequels in the past. It is also nice to know they can still keep some secrets as they still have not divulged the roles that Linda Cardellini and Julie Delpy will play, saying only that one should be familiar to Marvel fans and that one is the former mentor and instructor to Black Widow. Whether they are one and the same is unknown. We will all have to find out when AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON opens on May 1st.