Don't worry: There are no spoilers ahead.
“Avengers: Age of Ultron” director Joss Whedon was very clear when he told Entertainment Weekly there won’t be an end-credits scene after the film.
While that may be the case, don’t leave the theater as soon as the movie ends when you head out to see it.
After an initial credits sequence, there is a very brief mid-credits scene.
I won’t tell you what it is now, but come back after the film’s release, and we’ll have a full explainer breaking the scene down.
You won’t want to miss it.
This is the one that really matters, and teases where the future of the Marvel franchise is heading.
Wait. So, there is an end-credits sequence ... sort of?
Yes.
But, Whedon said there wasn't one?
Yes, technically, that's true. You won't have to sit through the black and white credits that roll for another 10 or so minutes.
So ... I freaked out over nothing?
Kind of. (It's okay. We freaked, too, at first.)
Since 2008, Marvel has been adding these fun tags to the end of its films. Sometimes, they tease something big. In "Iron Man," we saw Samuel L. Jackson step onto the screen as Nick Fury to approach Tony Stark about "The Avenger Initiative." "Thor" was hinted at after "Iron Man 2." You get it.
In more recent years, the end-credit scene became more lighthearted as Marvel started putting out two end-credit sequences starting with 2012's "The Avengers."
The first came midway through the credits (hence mid-credits sequence) and introduced Josh Brolin's future villain Thanos. Some fans may have left theaters afterward thinking that was it! Good show! However, those who stayed around until the end of the film found a fun additional scene continuing the flow of the actual movie where the Avengers gang went out for shawarma.
This didn't become the norm moving forward as "Iron Man 3" still had one end-credit scene. However, the mid-credits sequences started to become more important teasers for viewers than those at the very end of the film.
The only film that really hasn't followed this formula was 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which had two fun end-credits scenes. (Both of the scenes in "Captain America: The Winter Solider" were pretty important to the continuation of the "Captain America" franchise and the larger MCU as a whole.)
The post-credits scene we won't see at the end of "Avengers: Age of Ultron" would have been one of those lighter, more comical tags. Whedon even hinted at this himself when speaking with EW.
Whedon says they tried to come up with something worthy of the end-credits shot but ultimately couldn’t top shawarma. “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.”
So, no need to get worked up.
“Avengers: Age of Ultron” is in theaters May 1.
SEE ALSO: One of the biggest teases from the "Avengers: Age of Ultron" trailer won't even be in the movie
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