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Godzilla somehow managed to be the best part of Kong: Skull Island.
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00:00Though it certainly wasn't the first time a film has offered a little extra for audiences
00:04during or after the credits. Nick Fury talking to Tony Stark about the Avengers initiative in 2008
00:11kicked off the industry's current obsession with the post-credits scene. While this can be used to
00:16tease the future of a franchise, give a little glimpse of what's next for a character, or take
00:21a beat for one final laugh, it does feel as though adding such a scene has become more of an
00:26obligation or expectation than anything else. Too many post-credits scenes feel tacked on. But then
00:32there are those that aren't just worth sticking around for, they're actually the best part of the
00:37entire thing. So with that in mind, I'm Ellie for What Culture and these are all movies where the
00:43post-credits scene is the best part. Starting with Split. M. Night Shyamalan has struggled to live
00:50up to his exceptional early career work, with the likes of The Sixth Sense from 1999 and 2000's
00:56Unbreakable still being among the director's best all these years later. Conversely, his latest release,
01:03Trap, is without question among his worst. Against the rest of Shyamalan's catalogue, Split falls
01:09somewhere in the middle. In spite of a phenomenal performance from James McAvoy that arguably deserved
01:14more recognition, the film is a rather forgettable outing made relevant only by what happened after
01:20the closing title card. Without any real Shyamalan-esque twist up until this point, Split's post-credits
01:26scene, in fairness, offered one of the director's best ever, in that absolutely no one saw it coming.
01:33The news showed a report about McAvoy's Kevin Crumb in a cafe, before two people vaguely referencing
01:39Samuel L. Jackson's Unbreakable character from 15 years earlier, were given his name by Bruce Willis'
01:46David Dunn. There were absolutely no hints of any connection between the films in the run-up to Split
01:51or during its events, and the confirmation of it being a secret sequel to Unbreakable was huge.
01:58Certainly bigger than anything else that happened on screen. It's just a shame that this couldn't be
02:03followed up with something better than Glass. Daredevil. When it released in 2003, Daredevil
02:09wasn't received particularly well, and with the changing of the superhero landscape in the movie
02:15industry, in particular since the introduction of the Netflix born-again version of Matt Murdock,
02:21Ben Affleck's iteration is not looked back on fondly, to say the least. Everything that has been done with
02:27the character since has been better, though the one aspect that was enjoyed more than anything else
02:33was Colin Farrell's Bullseye. The character was incredibly over the top, eccentric and ridiculous,
02:40even for a movie like Daredevil. But he was easily the best part, and to end the whole thing with
02:45him
02:45was a smart decision. In a hospital bed, almost fully bandaged and incapacitated, Bullseye managed to
02:52get his hands on a syringe and impale a fly from across the room, showing that even after the events
02:58of the film, he still had his legendary accuracy. Though no sequel ever ultimately came, it was good
03:04to know that Bullseye was still there to be utilised should the need ever arise.
03:09Ralph Breaks the Internet. Though hardly one of the biggest names in Disney's extensive animated
03:15catalogue, Wreck-It Ralph enjoyed a decent enough introduction to the world in 2012, and was both popular
03:21and successful enough to warrant a sequel. Unfortunately, as is too often the case,
03:27the sophomore effort fell short of that initial magic. In fairness, there's nothing inherently
03:32terrible about Ralph Breaks the Internet, but it is largely forgettable. One of the most striking
03:37moments came when Vanellope found herself surrounded by just about every Disney princess you could imagine,
03:43as two of these characters were revisited for the post-credits scene. Kind of. In 2015,
03:51a sequel to one of the biggest films in recent memory, Disney's Frozen. The highly anticipated
03:57event was given a release date of 2019, and so when Ralph Breaks the Internet came out in 2018,
04:03the filmmakers were able to have a bit of fun with the unprecedented anticipation for the return to
04:08Arendelle. At the end of the credits, a sneak preview of the upcoming Frozen 2 was promised.
04:14Imagine the excitement and anticipation, children literally buzzing for what they were about to see.
04:20Well, what they saw after a few snowflakes falling was Ralph himself singing Never Gonna Give You Up
04:26by Rick Astley. That's right folks, Disney rewarded anyone who stayed through the credits with the
04:31greatest Rick role of all time. Slither. James Gunn may now be best known as the head of the new
04:38DCU,
04:39and of course the man behind the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, but his directing debut back in 2006
04:45was a far cry from the comic book world in which he has now made a name for himself.
04:49It may have featured frequent collaborators Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, but there wasn't a
04:55superhero in sight. Instead, body horror story Slither revolved around an alien parasite taking over a
05:01small town. Coming somewhat before the post-credits cinematic craze, Gunn gave audiences one final scene
05:08before the end. The remains of the horrific alien-human hybrid that Grant ultimately became
05:13was approached by a cat, who began to eat it before seemingly being infected as the screen
05:19went black. Used more for comedy than anything else, it was a great moment to leave audiences with.
05:25It was both funny and disgusting in equal measure, and could have teased something of a sequel had the
05:30film not been a box office disaster, reportedly failing to recoup its modest $15 million budget.
05:37Charlie's Angels. To say that it seems to be one of those cinematic trends that isn't going anywhere
05:43anytime soon, there are far more movie reboots that fail than are actually successful.
05:49Unfortunately, 2019's Charlie's Angels falls into the former. Elizabeth Banks' effort tried to bring an
05:56outdated idea into the present, and to say it was underwhelming would be an understatement.
06:00Clearly, the idea was there to kick off a new Angels franchise, with Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott,
06:06and Ella Belinska at the forefront, but there was no sequel forthcoming.
06:11Forgettable though it may have been, Charlie's Angels at least had a fun post-credits scene
06:16that was genuinely more entertaining than the plot of the film itself.
06:20After an entire movie of running with the Angels, the final scene saw Elena
06:24finally officially recruited, showing her training regime headlined by a bunch of huge cameos.
06:31Original Angel Kelly Garrett, IndyCar legend Danica Patrick, Ronda Rousey, Laverne Cox,
06:37Hailee Steinfeld, Lily Reinhardt, and Olympians Ali Raisman and Chloe Kim all showed their faces
06:43in a training montage that would have put more smiles on faces than the entire two hours that
06:49preceded it. Don't Look Up
06:50By its very critical and satirical nature, Adam McKay's Don't Look Up was always going to be
06:56somewhat divisive, something confirmed by its reception and Rotten Tomatoes scores.
07:01Quite simply, some people loved it and some people hated it.
07:05The story revolved around two astronomers, Leonardo DiCaprio's Dr. Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence's
07:11Kate DiBiaschi, trying to get the world to listen to the fact that there was an extinction-level
07:16comet hurling its way towards Earth. As a serious allegory for the dangers of climate change,
07:21it's not exactly the kind of film you'd expect to feature a post-credits scene.
07:25Yet the 2021 outing boasted two scenes that both gave closure on two of the most hated characters
07:31in the entire thing, namely the president and her son Jason.
07:35Meryl Streep's president, as one of the 2,000 people who fled the Earth to another planet,
07:40survived in her new home just minutes before being eaten by a dinosaur-like predator.
07:46While Jason was left as the last man alive on Earth, still pleading with his now-dead followers
07:52to like and subscribe to his videos.
07:54Kong Skull Island
07:56Kong Skull Island was decent enough itself, supported by a weirdly stacked cast led by the
08:01likes of Tom Hiddleston, Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson, and introduced audiences to this new
08:07juvenile version of Kong. The biggest moment in the film, however, came right at the very end.
08:12With the events on the titular island over and with a handful of the crew safely back home,
08:17James Conrad was approached yet again, this time while sat next to Mason Weaver in an interrogation
08:24room. Thus came the introduction of Monarch. Conrad and Weaver were told that the Earth
08:29never belonged to humans, and that Kong isn't the only king.
08:34Even for those in the audience who didn't recognise the following pictures of the likes of
08:38Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidorah, the unmistakable collision course that Kong had just been put on
08:44with Godzilla, connecting back to the King of Monsters movie from 2014, was nothing short of mouth-watering.
08:52Zombieland Double Tap
08:53The list of the greatest zombcoms of all time may be topped by Shaun of the Dead,
08:58but Zombieland is right up there with it.
09:01Ruben Fleischer's 2009 outing was funny, goofy, gory, and surprisingly emotional,
09:06and it's strange to think that it took so long for the sequel to come.
09:10Zombieland Double Tap released 10 years later in 2019, and like many long-awaited sequels,
09:16it was somewhat disappointing. There was nothing particularly new brought to the table,
09:21and it played out like a relatively safe return to Zombieland, though at the very least audiences
09:26were given a glimpse of the day the virus began. It may have come after the credits,
09:31but it showed day one of the outbreak in the funniest way possible, with a callback to the
09:36original film, no less, namely with Bill Murray.
09:40Murray's cameo in the original Zombieland was an absolute highlight, and his return for the
09:45subsequent sequel cameo was genius. At a press junket for the in-universe Garfield
09:51threequel, Flabby Tabby, Murray was forced to fight off zombie after zombie as the first wave
09:56hit. Double Tap wasn't terrible by any stretch, but this scene was better than anything that
10:02happened before the credits began to roll. Power Rangers
10:05Yet another film here that looked to set up a franchise before the jury was in on whether it
10:10was good enough to warrant one. The setup was great, but unfortunately the reception to the
10:15movie itself was enough to confirm it would never be followed up on.
10:18The would-be franchise in question is Power Rangers. As a property with huge popularity
10:23and incredible longevity, it's rather surprising that a live-action film franchise hasn't come
10:28to fruition, though it was unsuccessfully attempted in 2017. Seemingly following in the post-Dark
10:35Night footsteps that saw properties like Fantastic Four and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles try and fail
10:41to tell darker and grittier stories, Power Rangers received a lukewarm reception at best,
10:47and was an unmitigated commercial flop. Unfortunately, this meant that audiences would never get to see
10:52the Green Ranger that was teased at the very end. Back in detention, the teacher overlooking the room
10:58called the new name in the register, one Tommy Oliver. Cue the zoom-in on an empty desk with a
11:05green jumper thrown over the back of the chair. This would have got fans of the Power Rangers excited,
11:10as many would have been disappointed that the Green Ranger was not included from the beginning.
11:15But unfortunately, it seems as though that particular ship has now sailed.
11:19And finally, Argyle. Sony may have long been the home of the most iconic spy movie franchise in history,
11:26but it is not all unmitigated success in this area. For lack of a better word, Matthew Vaughan's Argyle
11:33was simply weird, and underwhelmed in just about every aspect. The film followed the story of Ellie Conway,
11:39author of the Argyle novel series, as real-life events and those of her fictional works began to
11:45run parallel to each other. As part of the marketing for the movie, Conway's in-universe first Argyle
11:51novel was released, and quite ironically, would have made for a better building block from which
11:56to start a franchise. Simply, this was an origin story for Aubrey Argyle, played by Henry Cavill,
12:02and it was only alluded to in the post-credits scene. As a moment lifted directly from the novel,
12:08Argyle could be seen picking up a gun from a bar before his foray into the world of espionage began.
12:14The movie was clearly supposed to be the beginning of a franchise, something that was killed almost
12:18immediately thanks to its poor critical and commercial performance. However, had the post-credits
12:25scene been included in a film that adapted the book, forgetting the story of the author herself,
12:31it would have stood more of a chance.
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