CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD's Divisive Post-Credits Scene Explained by Director, and It Was a Late Addition

Marvel fans have come to expect big things from the post-credits scenes in their films, but Captain America: Brave New World didn’t do much to excite fans. In fact, it was pretty dumb.

The film only features one end-credits sequence, and its reception has been anything but enthusiastic. Some fans are even calling it Marvel Studios' worst post-credits scene to date.

So, what happened? According to director Julius Onah, it was always the plan to have only one post-credit scene. While speaking with Collider, he explained that rather than multiple teases, they wanted to keep the focus on Sam Wilson’s journey as the new Captain America.

Onah explained: "It was always the case that what felt organic for this movie was just leaning into a post-credits sequence that could tease what's coming next. We wanted to tease it in a way that didn't become too explicit. This is about introducing Sam as our new Captain America."

That singular scene shows Sam visiting The Leader in The Raft, where he receives a cryptic warning about a looming Multiversal threat and "others" coming to Earth-616. One of the things that was so stupid about the scene is how everyone was acting like the superheros have never faced an existential threat before outside of Earth.

Given that Avengers: Doomsday is on the horizon, it should have been an exciting tease, but a lot of fans found it frustratingly vague.

Onah went on to say: "That was the overarching focus of this movie, so to start throwing in too many post-credit sequences just felt like it was going to stray away from that. Even the tease we have is still very Sam-centric."

Also, it turns out this post-credits scene wasn’t even in the original shoot, it was added during last year’s reshoots. That might explain some of its ambiguity. The Leader’s redesign in the scene had already hinted at it being a late addition, but Onah confirmed it saying:

"That was shot during our additional photography. That's what I mean about all this is planned ahead of time. We didn't know what our post-credit scene was going to be just yet.

“As you know, there was a massive writers’ strike, so that meant it was pencils down not just on this movie, but pencils down on everything in film and TV. Nothing was happening."

He continued: "So, who knew what Thunderbolts was going to look like necessarily? Or the next Avengers was going to look like? So when we got out of that strike, and we were actually able to put pen to paper for Brave New World, and everybody else was able to put pen to paper for their movies.

“That's when you can actually start to have a real conversation as to where things are going and what post-credits sequence is the appropriate one to tease. So, that's how it evolved."

In the end, the scene was a last-minute decision made after the Hollywood strikes ended, and without a finalized script for Avengers: Doomsday, it was always going to be more of a broad setup than a direct tease. Just better and more interesting dailogue would’ve made it better!