Mid-credits scenes. Sometimes they set up some of the most exciting sequences in franchise history… like when Spider-Man’s secret identity got revealed by Mysterio in the credits for Spider-Man: Far From Home. More often than not, however, the scenes go nowhere – something that Marvel Studios has been guilty of in the recent past. And then there are the legendary mid-credits scenes that set up iconic premises, which notoriously fall on their face. Most of these belong in the DC universe, and now Henry Cavill is making fun of one that notoriously hurt him the most.
Henry Cavill is hard at work, promoting his upcoming film The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, a WWII action thriller directed by Guy Ritchie. And during a recent screening that was attended by Business Insider, Cavill joked that he’d worked with Ritchie before “in a post-credit scene” for the Charlie Hunnam movie King Arthur. If that scene exists, precious few have ever seen it. Which is why Cavill made the following joke, throwing enormous shade at his infamous Black Adam cameo in the process. Cavill said:
Turns out, I don't have much luck with post-credit scenes. So, I may give up on those.
Henry Cavill is doing something that he has done far too often, which is playfully poking fun at his legacy because things didn’t go his way. During the Lionsgate presentation at CinemaCon, Cavill referenced his Ungentlemanly Warfare facial hair, and how it wasn’t the most troublesome facial hair he’s even had to endure… also referring to the tragedy of his digitized face in the Joss Whedon cut of Justice League. I wrote a whole book on the Justice League tomfoolery. You need to check it out.
The Black Adam cameo is something different, and something that still angers me to this day. For those who forget the details, Henry Cavill appeared at the end of Dwayne Johnson’s Black Adam, teasing a showdown between the titans in a future DCEU movie. It looks like this:
By the time that Black Adam came out, the writing was on the wall for the DCEU. It was finished, and a new era was underway with Peter Safran and James Gunn leading DC’s charge. Everyone involved with Black Adam, from the creatives to the audience, knew that this cameo would amount to nothing. Yet, Cavill was allowed to go online and make his fans believe this was a fresh start, with more to come.
It was not.
Somehow, holding the football like Lucy and allowing Cavill to run at it was more insulting than the headless cameo in Shazam. Warner Bros. and DC could have left well enough alone. The man had moved on to other projects like The Witcher and Enola Holmes. Teasing him, and his fans, with the promise of more remains so mean, it makes my blood boil. Once the higher ups understood that the DCEU had no future, this scene should have hit the cutting room floor. To save Henry Cavill the embarrassment, at the very least.
We’ll soon have another Superman to cheer for, as James Gunn currently is hard at work on his Superman movie, due in theaters in 2025. It’s the first of several upcoming DC movies that will include new adventures for Batman, The Authority, Supergirl, the Teen Titans, and more.
