Marvel Studios has been criticised for post-credits scenes in the Multiverse Saga that haven't led anywhere. Whether it's introducing characters like Hercules and Starfox or teasing sequels that have yet to come to fruition, it's been a frustrating few years.
Thunderbolts*, however, changed things with a must-see stinger that leads directly into next December's Avengers: Doomsday. The mid-credits scene was also a lot of fun, picking up with Red Guardian after he finally secured a spot on a Wheaties box.
Talking to us earlier this week about Thunderbolts*'s upcoming release on Digital, 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD, filmmaker Jake Schreier revealed an alternate post-credits scene we didn't get to see.
"I mean, Alexei is just so fun. I mean, you could come up with post-credits scenes for Alexei all day," the director tells us in the video below. "I think I think we did have one other idea that maybe it could be the VHS home video of the soccer game with Mindy, and that might be fun; the chaos of that going back in time. But I don't know, this is just where we landed."
We also wondered how Thunderbolts*'s big "New Avengers" reveal changed Schreier's approach to telling this story.
"It was an exciting opportunity, and that was there from the beginning, even though many, many other things shifted about the story. It meant that we always knew that we had to walk this interesting line of trying to make a movie that was different, which is something Kevin [Feige] also told us to do, but it had to end in this place that felt like it could live up to that mantle, even if at first the audience and maybe the public were a little like, 'Huh?'"
"And then, when you think about it, 'Oh, I guess they could be that in their way,' or you would like to at least see them try going forward. And so it felt like our movie had to take that same tack. 'This is gonna be different. This is not gonna be your traditional MCU movie,' but by the end, it also needs to have enough things in it that live up to that legacy, so that when you get to the end, it doesn't feel like it comes entirely from out of nowhere."
When you go back in and you see all of the breadcrumbs that we left around, like old Avengers history and those moments from the MCU that we're kind of quoting or hinting at, that you would feel like it had actually built up to that moment."
Fans have responded positively to the introduction of the MCU's New Avengers, and there's a lot of excitement to see where this team goes next, heading into Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars.
Schreier, meanwhile, has passed the baton to the Russo Brothers with these characters and looks set to turn his attention to another superhero team in the MCU: the X-Men.
Thunderbolts* is available on Digital now and will be released on 4K and Blu-ray on July 29.