James Mangold made some pretty big waves last week when he exclaimed how much he disliked post-credits scenes during a Writers Guild of America panel that CinemaBlend attended. The Logan director's remarks incited numerous online opinions, some supportive and some argumentative. Now, Mangold has clarified his comments to note that these credits stingers scare him about the future of the film industry, while also noting that he's similarly not a fan of Easter eggs in movies either. About post-credits scenes, Mangold took to social media and wrote:
Many folks commented on my diatribe re: end credits scenes. Good points made by some who disagree. My vehemence comes from a belief these scenes r cinematic MSG/crack. Of course they feel good. They are designed to do that, like ads, as they hook you to buy the next films and at the same time, I feel like the omnipresent expectation of them cheapens the integrity of a theatrical experience as the movie doesn't stick its ending but rather dribbles to an end with a series of pleasing vignettes/ads for the thing they will sell you next year. So its not so much the scenes I despise as much as I fear that movies (an art form I deeply love) are not advanced when they are no longer functioning as a form with a beginning middle and end but rather as part of a serialized money machine.
So, it seems that James Mangold's opinion towards post-credit scenes is more about how they're changing audience expectations and movies themselves than anything else. His issue stems from the fact that he thinks end-credits scenes don't bode well for the future of self-contained storytelling. In his opinion, they're used on films that don't "stick" their endings, and the expectation of addicting franchise content at the end of a film's credits (think Nick Fury's fun debut in 2008's Iron Man) simply "cheapens" the act of watching a full story by focusing on future movies and sequel potential.
That might go a long way towards explaining why Logan was able to end without a single post-credit scene. With Hugh Jackman walking away from the X-Men franchise, and an R-rating ensuring a mostly-mature audience, James Mangold was able to end the final Wolverine movie with a simple shot of a makeshift X and arguably tie the story up on a high note.
Later in James Mangold's lengthy Twitter thread, he also revealed he similarly doesn't enjoy the inclusion of Easter eggs in movies. As it turns out, he similarly finds them very disrespectful to audiences. Mangold continued:
Lastly, the term "Easter egg" is a bit infantile &, at least [to] me, feels condescending toward a thoughtful & intellectual audience that might be treated w/ more respect than imagining them as kids jumping around trying to guess storylines from breadcrumbs dropped by corporations.
Again, that might explain why Logan had so few references to the X-Men lore. It used what it needed to use from previous films, but for the most part, it kept everything self-contained and focused on the barebones basics; a beginning, a middle, and an ending.
With post-credits scenes and Easter eggs so firmly ingrained in our collective consciousness, it will be interesting to see if James Mangold's opinions on the matter start to take root with the collective fanbase. We still have plenty of comic book movies and blockbusters left on the 2018 movie premiere guide, so make sure to check out all of them and give us your take on this particular debate!
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