The latest MCU movie has two end credits Marvel fans won’t want to miss.
Hitting cinemas today, Thunderbolts* concludes with the anti-hero team being renamed the New Avengers (hence the asterisk).
The mid-credits scene is a comedy skit with David Harbour’s Red Guardian in a grocery store trying to get his fellow shopper to recognise him on a New Avengers cereal box and failing.
But it’s the post-credits scene set some 14 months later in the Avengers Tower that is having cinema audiences gasping ahead of The Fantastic Four and Avengers Doomsday.
The post-credits scene depicts the New Avengers relaxing in the tower when Bob receives a distress call from Outer Space. As Florence Pugh’s Yelena looks at the satellite footage, a huge spacecraft comes into view. As it turns, a giant number 4 is revealed confirming that the Fantastic Four have entered the MCU’s Earth-616. So, what does this mean for the next couple of Marvel movies?
The next film in the franchise to hit cinemas is The Fantastic Four: First Steps, on July 25, 2025. Set in a 1960s retro-futuristic alternate universe to the MCU’s Earth-616, Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach star as Marvel’s First Family. Now what’s clear from the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene is that The Fantastic Four movie will conclude with the superhero team crossing the multiverse into Earth-616 for the events of Avengers Doomsday.
Avengers Doomsday is set to release in cinemas a year from today and will be directed by Infinity War and Endgame’s The Russo Brothers. Not only that, but Robert Downey Jr returns as the villainous Doctor Doom. Among the extensive cast announced are the New Avengers, Fantastic Four and the 2000s X-Men, who are also from another universe – as teased in The Marvels end credits. Chris Hemsworth’s Thor, Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, Tom Hiddleston’s Loki and more are also returning in the multiverse crossover epic.