November 4, 2014 by Paul Curtin
It’s been pretty obvious over the years that acclaimed director Christopher Nolan hasn’t been a big supporter of the whole stinger movement. While Marvel has been attaching extra scenes both during and after the credits for all their recent films, other superhero films have been hit or miss. We saw an extra scene during the credits of The Green Lantern, but better DC films that Nolan has been behind such as the Batman trilogy and Man of Steel have been sans stingers.
In a recent Nolan profile with The Guardian, we now have a confirmation that Nolan isn’t a fan of the after credits idea.
“The Batman movies – that take, that tone – came out of nowhere,” said director Zack Snyder, who first met Nolan on a Warner Bros plane heading to a film industry convention in Las Vegas and leapt at the chance to direct a similarly toned Superman reboot, Man Of Steel – for which he studied, at Nolan’s request, test footage from White Sands, New Mexico, to get a sense of how objects behave at high velocity. When the studio asked if Snyder would add a comedy coda ending, in the style of Marvel, Nolan’s reply was “A real movie wouldn’t do that.”
While this seems like a shot at Marvel, Nolan has a bit of a point and stingers are usually best when attached to the end of comedies. Although Marvel has used extra scenes after the credits spectacularly to expand their own universe and tease sequels, having a comedic scene after a masterpiece like The Dark Knight could have ruined it.
With DC trying to launch their own franchise of new and old superheroes on the big screen to compete with Marvel, it wouldn’t be surprising to see a stinger in 2016’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice… but if Nolan has his way, any sort of tease will be right before the credits and not after — like what he did with Inception.
UPDATE: Nolan has responded to the original article quoting him by saying he had told Snyder, “We shouldn’t be chasing other movies, but stay true to the tone of Man of Steel.” and “I would never say someone’s else’s film isn’t ‘a real film’. The quote is inaccurate.”
