Ever since Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) showed up to recruit Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) for The Avengers Initiative at the end of Iron Man, blockbuster films have often implored audiences to stay through a film's credits for an extra scene. It has created fun speculation for Marvel Cinematic Universe or DC Extended Universe movies, but the trend seems to annoy some big industry names. In fact, during the 2018 Writers Guild of America West Beyond Words Panel in Los Angeles last night, Logan's James Mangold went off on post-credits sequences and even referred to them as an "embarrassing" aspect of modern filmmaking. Discussing the types of movies he does and doesn't want to write, Mangold said:
The idea of making a movie that would fucking embarrass me, that's part of the anesthetizing of this country or the world. That's further confirming what they already know and tying in with other fucking products and selling them the next movie while you're making this movie, and kind of all that shit that I find really fucking embarrassing. Like, that audiences are actually asking for scenes in end credits when those scenes were first developed for movies that suck, so they put something extra at the end to pick up the scores when the movie couldn't end right on its own fucking feet.
James Mangold isn't one to mince words. He's not a fan of post-credit scenes, and he seems to think that they're merely a way to look one step ahead and sell a franchise before audiences have even finished with the movie that they're watching. They used to be more prominent in standalone films like Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Airplane!, but they have evolved to become stepping stones for more of a studio's content, as well as a way to get audiences pumped for the next entry on a slate.
Now, in James Mangold's eyes, we have made audiences accustomed to post-credits scenes to the point that they're merely expected before a film and debated upon ahead of the film's release, essentially "cheating" in the creation of hype. Mangold addressed how modern fandoms approach credit stingers and said:
Now we've actually gotten audiences addicted to a fucking bonus in the credits. It's fucking embarrassing. It means you couldn't land your fucking movie is what it means. Even if you got 100,000 Twitter addicts who are gambling on what fucking scene is going to happen after the fucking credits it's still cheating. It's just cheating, but there's all sorts of bad habits like that that fucking horrify me, man, that have become de rigueur in the way we make movies and I think the fear of being one of them that did that end then everyone's patting me on the back and I feel like shit inside because I know I cheated, is probably the greatest thing that scares the shit out of me.
There are others who would argue that post-credit scenes keep people in their seats while the names of all the hard-working people who actually labored on the film flash by, but James Mangold doesn't seem to see it that way. Of course, James Mangold has not always eschewed superhero post-credits scenes. He was responsible for a tease at the end of The Wolverine that technically paid off in X-Men: Days of Future Past but was ultimately mostly discarded by never explaining the resurrection of Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) after X-Men: The Last Stand, or how Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) got one of his adamantium claws back. Still, looking at what he has to say about these sequences, it arguably seems safe to assume that he won't do another one anytime soon.
Make sure to watch as Logan dukes it out against fellow Oscar nominees Call Me by Your Name, The Disaster Artist, Molly's Game, and Mudbound for the Best Adapted Screenplay. The ceremony will kick off on Sunday, March 4 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Looking ahead through 2018, hop over to our movie premiere guide to see which films may already be in the running for the 2019 Oscars as well!
This poll is no longer available.
