Ever since the premiere of ‘Iron Man’ way back in 2008, a staple of the Marvel superhero films has been their post-credits tag scenes. In the years since, the success of these tags has even led to some Marvel movies including more than one such scene, such as ‘Avengers’, which featured one tag during the credits and a second after. Accordingly, it has also become common for the contents of these tag scenes to leak ahead of the film’s release.
Such is the case with ‘Doctor Strange’, whose mid-credit scene recently leaked. In that scene, we see Doctor Strange meet with Thor and ultimately agree to help him and Loki track down the missing Odin. In addition to the scene itself, ‘Doctor Strange’ director Scott Derrickson recently offered some insights into the scene’s production, including how it was selected as the film’s stinger.
“Taika [Waititi] shot that – I can’t say if it’s from ‘Thor 3’ or not, but we had our set up and were going to strike it after I finished shooting and it’s a very expensive set with the chamber of relics and the window and everything… I don’t know where they were on the script process, but it was before they were in production. Taika wrote that scene and came in and shot it. We had no specifc intention at that point to use it as the tag, but after we finished our movie we felt that it was kind of perfect. It plays really well, the audience likes the uplift of Strange being introduced to the wider MCU. Until then he’s not really a part of it, he’s just a story happening on his own – but after that tag, it’s all changed.”
Given that the scene was written and filmed by the director of ‘Thor: Ragnarok‘, It would not be at all surprising if this scene (or an extended version of it) turned up in the upcoming ‘Thor’ sequel. This certainly wouldn’t be without precedent in the recent Marvel films, as the post-credits scene from ‘Ant-Man’ was ultimately incorporated into ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and was similarly shot by that film’s directors.
The latest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ‘Doctor Strange’ will land in theaters on November 4, 2016. The film stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams, and Chiwetel Ejiofor.
