Logan director James Mangold explains why there’s no post-credits scene
The Wolverine solo film ends where it ends for a good reason
Following the news that new Wolverine solo movie Logan doesn’t include the a post-credits teaser scene (instead showing a trailer for Deadpool 2 before the film starts), the X-Men spin-off’s director James Mangold has opened up about why he eschewed the now-traditional accompaniment to any modern superhero movie.
Basically, it’s a combination of wanting Logan to stand on its own terms (which we suspected) and sheer irritation at everyone assuming he had to include one.
“The only way we came out with a different movie was trying to do it differently,” Mangold told the Toronto Sun. “So I was pretty fanatical about saying, ‘If this is how these other movies are doing it, we’re going the other way.’
“If there’s normally a cameo or an end-credit scene, we’re not doing that. That’s essentially turning it into a product that has to come out of the widget machine the same way every time and that’s not how the best movies are going to get made... in any genre.
“The second it’s like, ‘Well, you’re supposed to serve cheesecake at the end of the meal,’ my response is, ‘Really? Is that the new rule? I can’t serve dinner at my house without cheesecake at the end?’ That’s a good enough reason not to do it.
“And really, what are those scenes but ads for another movie? We were trying to make a movie that begun and ended on its own terms. There was nothing else to say, because we had said it.”
Referencing his previous films, he added: “I didn’t make Cop Land and put a post-credit scene in there. I didn’t make Walk the Line, and then after the credits put in one extra song with Reese (Witherspoon) and Joaquin (Phoenix).”
As we’ve previously noted, the emotional end to Logan would also probably make a post-credits scene feel jarring tonally, so we reckon that overall Mangold made the right choice here. After all, it’s not like we didn’t get a pretty good “ad for another movie” before the film started anyway…
Logan is in UK cinemas now
