--- title: What Superman’s End‑Credits Mean Amid Franchise Fatigue description: From Superman’s lighthearted take to Sinners’ emotional coda, the role of blockbuster post‑credits scenes is evolving. canonical: https://time.com/7301405/superman-post-credits-scenes-franchise/ author: Eliana Dockterman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-07-11T17:33:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:50:57.285Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: What Superman’s End‑Credits Mean Amid Franchise Fatigue og:description: From Superman’s lighthearted take to Sinners’ emotional coda, the role of blockbuster post‑credits scenes is evolving. og:url: https://time.com/7301405/superman-post-credits-scenes-franchise/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte33d118e162d0801/6998c53307a30d67a777cda2/superman-warner-bros-david-corenswet.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: superman-warner-bros-david-corenswet og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Superman’s End‑Credits Mean Amid Franchise Fatigue twitter:description: From Superman’s lighthearted take to Sinners’ emotional coda, the role of blockbuster post‑credits scenes is evolving. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte33d118e162d0801/6998c53307a30d67a777cda2/superman-warner-bros-david-corenswet.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Superman's End-Credits Scenes Mean—For the DC Universe and the Movies ## Video: 'Superman' Stars on the Latest Superhero Film [Watch (HLS stream): 'Superman' Stars on the Latest Superhero Film](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Jmltbdsm.m3u8) (2:49)  _Published 2025-07-11. "Superman" star David Corenswet says audiences are going to want to see James Gunn's new film over and over again. The 31-year-old American actor plays Clark Kent in the latest take on the red-caped superhero. Rachel Brosnahan plays his love interest, Lois Lane. She says she found her character by watching older "Superman" films and reading comics, and also by talking with real-life journalists._  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jul 11, 2025 5:33 PM UTC  Warner Bros. Pictures  by [Eliana Dockterman](https://time.com/author/eliana-dockterman/)  ## Eliana Dockterman Correspondent Jul 11, 2025 5:33 PM UTC **_Warning: This post contains spoilers for the endings of_** **Superman, Sinners** **_, and_** **28 Years Later.** Let's get this out of the way. Does _Superman_ have an end-credits scene? Yes. In fact it has two. Do they matter? They do not. One involves Superman cuddling [his dog Krypto](https://time.com/7301596/krypto-dog-superman-history/)—cute but not exactly offering up anything in the way of plot development. In another he banters with Mister Terrific, a superhero who helped save the world by closing up aportal to another dimension, about the imperfect alignment of the two halves of Metropolis that got ripped apart in that cataclysmic incident. Again, funny, but offers no hint as to the future of Superman or his various friends and foes in the DC Comics film adaptations. The lack of substance in these two scenes may come as a surprise to many moviegoers. We've come to expect our summer blockbusters to conclude with a sequence buried in the credits that sets up the sequel or spinoff or next chapter in the superhero saga we just watched. The Marvel Cinematic Universe didn't invent the end-credits scene: '80s comedies like [_Airplane!_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPeYFD-vVHg)and [_Ferris Bueller's Day Off_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1XgFsitnQw) wrote stingers for laughs. But the MCU jumpstarted the modern trend way back in 2008 when Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury showed up to [recruit Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oKUsna2yvA) into a new supergroup. (Spoiler alert: They're called the Avengers.) Nearly every Marvel movie since has tacked on a scene or two during the credits teasing the upcoming movies in the franchise. Other cinematic universes—the DCEU, _Fast & Furious_, _Pirates of the Caribbean_, _John Wick_—followed suit, training audiences to stay put in their seats, just in case. _Superman_ is launching the brand new DCU (the DC Universe, rebranded from the old DCEU or DC Extended Universe). So one would expect _Superman_ director and co-creative mastemind of the DCU, James Gunn, to seize the opportunity to tease one of the DC projects coming out next year like the _Supergirl_ movie, the horror film _Clayface_, or even the HBO show _Lanterns_. But he opted for a more comedic direction instead. Some fans might welcome the _Superman_ stingers as refreshingly light diversions. After all, audiences seem to have rebelled against the amount of homework they've been asked to do to keep up with superhero films and series these days, a frustration that has manifested in [cratering box-office returns](https://variety.com/2025/film/box-office/thunderbolts-lost-millions-box-office-marvel-next-1236427994/) and [depressed streaming numbers](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/marvel-studios-cut-back-films-tv-shows-1235892364/). Others might wonder why they sat through a long string of credits only to be rewarded with style over substance. In theory, the answer might be the immeasurable value of learning the names of the many, many stunt performers and CGI programmers who worked on this film. But let's be real, you were probably scrolling your phone during the credits, weren't you? It begs the question, what are post-credits scenes for these days, anyway? Three of this year's biggest movies—_Superman, Sinners,_ and _28 Years Later_—take three notably different approaches to their ending scenes. The evolution of the stringer suggests that directors are eager to evolve the rote end-credits scene into something more innovative or, let us hope, entertaining. ## _Sinners_ puts a crucial scene in the credits  (L-R): Michael B. Jordan as Smoke and Miles Caton as Sammie in Sinners. Warner Bros. Pictures On the opposite side of the post-credits scene conundrum from Gunn's _Superman_ sits Ryan Coogler's _Sinners_: The horror film's [mid-credits scene](https://time.com/7278294/sinners-ending-credits-scene-explained/) serves as an essential coda to the story. Before my press screening of that film, a docent was sent into the theater to instruct journalists to remain seated through the credits, despite the fact that by Coogler's own assertion, _Sinners_ is a stand-alone work, not the first in a burgeoning vampire universe. Good thing he did, because without the heads-up, I would have missed a key moment of closure to the story. The movie, set during the Jim Crow era, flashes forward to the 1990s. First comes a bit of stunt casting: Legendary blues musician Buddy Guy plays an aged version of the main character Sammie (portrayed in the rest of the movie by Miles Caton). He has grown from aspiring singer to successful musician playing a club in Chicago. Then, a moment of surprise: Vampire versions of Miles' family members, Michael B. Jordan's Stack and Hailee Steinfeld's Mary, have survived the epic battle at the end of the film and come to chat with Sammie. Coogler elicits a chuckle from the audience with Jordan's and Steinfeld's period-accurate, completely over-the-top '90s getups. But the heart of the scene is the moment of closure for Sammie. Sammie once abandoned his priest father and religion to pursue the blues in a metaphorical deal with the devil. He found happiness in doing so, despite carrying the scars of the night when he summoned demons with his angelic voice. When Stack arrives at the night club, he tells Sammie that the old musician will die soon and offers to make him immortal. Sammie turns Stack down. Sammie has lived a full life but also seen the ills of the Earth and will be ready to depart. He admits that while the night he fought vampires and lost nearly everyone he loved still haunts him, the preceding day setting up the juke joint that Stack opened with his twin brother Smoke was the best of Sammie's life. In a movie that wrangles with the complexities of religion andthe vampiric state of a predominantly white-run music business that feeds on the creativity Black artists, among other themes, Sammie's happy ending—and, seemingly those of Stack and Mary—hold real power. The film is not complete without this conversation and Sammie's decision to forge his own path rather than the one laid out for him by the metaphorical devils and angels on his shoulder. As I left the theater, I wondered aloud to a colleague why Coogler would have inserted that scene mid-way through the credits rather than simply ending the film on that moment. I worried that some audience members would walk out without seeing a crucial piece of Coogler's story, and when I saw the film again a few weeks later, at least a handful of people did. That's a loss. [According to Coogler himself](https://www.themovieblog.com/2025/04/sinners-post-credit-scene-explained-by-ryan-coogler/), "The whole script was about that moment." Coogler, like Gunn, was forged in the fires of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the former having [helmed two _Black Panther_ movies](https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2018-ryan-coogler-runner-up/), the latter three volumes of _Guardians of the Galaxy_. They seem to have come away from the experience with different lessons. Marvel has recently developed a reputation for introducing character and plot points in post-credits scenes that never manifest in future films. There was the [_Guardians_ _of the Galaxy_ _Vol. 2_ spinoff super-team](https://time.com/4754639/guardians-galaxy-2-post-credit-scenes/) involving Sylvester Stallone and Michelle Yeoh that disappeared from the MCU. Charlize Theron popped up in the [stinger for _Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness_](https://time.com/6174104/doctor-strange-2-end-credits/), never to be seen again. Brett Goldstein made his debut as Hercules in a [_Thor: Love and Thunder_ end-credits scene](https://time.com/6193860/thor-love-and-thunder-end-credits-scenes/) that seems to be headed nowhere. And remember when [_Eternals_ previewed three different superheroes](https://time.com/6112817/eternals-post-credits-scenes/)—Mahershala Ali as Blade, Kit Harington as Black Knight, and none other than Harry Styles as Eros— never to speak of those character again? Gunn, newly minted as the head of a competing cinematic universe, might be wary of overpromising and underdelivering. Fair enough. But Coogler finds himself embracing what is, perhaps, inevitable: Movies of a certain size may always contain these scenes. And he decides to deliver poignancy and character development instead of that mild hit of serotonin we get from hearing a new superhero name dropped onscreen. ## _28 Years Later_ teases a trilogy pre-credits  Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Spike (Alfie Williams) in 28 Years Later. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Entertainment That's all well and good if, like Coogler, you're determined to escape franchise filmmaking and direct movies that feel holistic and complete: The writer-director has said he has no plans to film a _Sinners_ sequel. But what to do if you're helming one movie as part of a series and don't want to fall into the teaser trap? The latest entry in the _28 Days Later_ zombie franchise, _28 Years Later_, offers yet another answer. The new zombie film, directed by Danny Boyle, is the first in a planned trilogy.Nia DaCosta will direct a _28 Years Later_ sequel called _The Bone Temple_, and then Boyle plans to return for a third and final movie. Rather than relying on a post-credits scene to set up DaCosta's film, Boyle opted instead for a tonally jarring final act to his movie. The bleak but moving film—whose third act brings the death of the main character Spike's mother and the birth of a miraculously uninfected baby from an pregnant infected—takes a major zag as Spike sets off from his old sequesteredhome to find his way alone on the dangerous mainland. A character named Jimmy, who appears as a young boy at the beginning of the film, returns as a full grown man. Flanked by a tracksuit-clad group of parkour enthusiasts, Jimmy rescues Spike from a horde of zombies. The fighters call themselves the Jimmys and dress like Jimmy Savile, the British television presenter who was accused after his death of committing [hundreds of instances of sexual abuse](https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/world/europe/allegations-of-abuse-by-jimmy-savile-tv-host-are-unprecedented-british-police-say.html), many involving children. (In this universe, the zombie outbreak happened before Savile was outed as an alleged abuser.) Much of the film deals with icons of British culture—images of the queen, clips from Shakespeare adaptations, quotes from Rudyard Kipling—so a group of young boys' pop culture obsessions crystalizing when the infection took hold of the U.K. only for those young men to end up worshipping a monster does fit thematically in the film. Still, the allusion to a serial abuser has already stirred controversy. Whatever the actual influences behind the finale, it seems a prime candidate for a post-credits scene because of its major tonal shift, its clear agenda to set up a sequel, and its distracting reference to a disgraced television personality. And yet Boyle eschewed the convention, perhaps a sign that directors are trying, in different ways, to free themselves from the tyranny of the end-credits. Don't ring the death knell for the end-credits scene yet. It won't disappear. But it is evolving. Perhaps it's a sign that we have entered an era of post-MCU dominance. _Captain America: Brave New World_ and _Thunderbolts_ will probably end the year in the top 10 highest grossing films, but they were beaten out at the international box office by _A Minecraft Movie_, the latest _Mission: Impossible_, and a handful of children's films: Superhero movies are not the assured home run they used to be. As audience expectations shift in search of something more original that doesn't strictly follow the MCU playbook, we can expect more freedom and experimentation. That's always a good thing. The next time you're watching a summer blockbuster in the movie theater, you might as well stay until the very end, just in case. You may see something unexpected. 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