As director Zack Snyder’s superhero pic Man of Steel approached release, there was a high level of both anticipation and curiosity in the air. The previous year, Marvel Studios had capped off its Phase One of interconnected superhero movies with The Avengers, which enjoyed both critical and commercial success to the tune of $1.5 billion. Their experiment worked, and they would continue building out their MCU for years to come. With Warner Bros., though, Man of Steel was seen as possibly the first piece of a larger puzzle that could lead to the studio’s own interconnected universe of DC Comics adaptations. How would Man of Steel compare to Marvel’s approach? Would there be many similarities?
The finished film, it turns out, was actually quite different from Marvel’s output. It maintained the same dramatic tone of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy even though the films weren’t connected, and there weren’t too many nods to other DC characters. But the film almost had one big similarity to Marvel’s approach: a post-credits stinger. However, when WB brought up the prospect of adding a coda, Nolan (a producer on the film) reportedly nixed the idea quite strongly. More after the jump.
A number of very interesting profiles of Nolan have been unveiled recently in anticipation of the release of his sci-fi epic Interstellar, and one such piece in The Guardian today revealed that Warner Bros. was keen on adding a post-credits scene to Man of Steel:
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.”
I agree that a “comedy coda ending” wouldn’t really be fitting with the tone of Man of Steel, but I’m not too sure what Nolan means by “a real movie wouldn’t do that.” I generally enjoyed Man of Steel and thought Snyder did a solid job with the material, but I do think the film might have been improved by a bit of a comedic injection. People forget that Batman Begins is actually really funny, with small bits of humor sprinkled throughout the superhero origin story. It’s not nearly as colorful as Marvel’s films, but the few one-liners go a long way towards adding some humanity to the picture—this is a superhero movie after all.
Regardless, I’m not surprised that Warner Bros. wanted to add a post-credits scene to Man of Steel, and I’m also not surprised that Nolan wasn’t a fan of the idea. However, with Nolan no longer involved in Warner Bros.’ superhero slate beyond an executive producer credit on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and with Warner Bros. having set a superhero movie slate through the year 2020, I am curious to see if Snyder includes a tease for fans after the credits of BvS.
What do you think, readers? Would Man of Steel have been improved by a “comedy coda ending?” If Snyder and Nolan did opt to add a post-credits scene to the film, what kind of scene would you have liked to have seen?
