Movies often end on cliffhangers or by hinting towards things to come, but sometimes those
endings can be quite dense and confusing for audiences.
Examples are particularly prominent in - although not exclusive to - the world of comic book
movies, because the endings will often hint towards new characters from the comic books
that mainstream movie audiences might not be familiar with.Of course, these days, movies
don't necessarily "end" at the point that they're traditionally supposed to.
Back in the day, a movie would end and the rolling of the credits would be the cue for
audiences to stop watching, but mid and post-credits scenes are extremely common these days - and
these scenes can often explain (or at least hint towards) the future of the franchise
in question.In this article, we'll take a look at ten movies that ended in a way that
suggested "something" was going to happen in the future - whether it be in a credits
scene or otherwise - and we'll explain exactly what that "something" is going to be.
Please note that there will be some spoilers for a number of movies released in 2016.
Captain America: Civil War A lot happened at the end of Captain America:
Civil War.
Heroes went off in all kinds of different directions and there were two scenes after
the credits rolled, so let's cut to the chase here; The Avengers now officially only consist
of Iron Man, a recovering War Machine and Vision.
Black Widow is on the run for helping Bucky and Captain America escape, despite having
been on Iron Man's team.
As per the mid-credits scene, Black Panther, also despite having been on Iron Man's team,
has taken Captain America and Bucky Barnes to Wakanda, granting them both asylum and
putting Barnes back in cryogenic stasis until his brainwashing can be cured.
The rest of Team Captain America are on the run - including Ant-Man, who may well be a
fugitive when his next movie with the Wasp comes around.
And, as per the post-credits scene, Spider-Man is back in Queens in possession of a high-tech
gadget that would suggest Tony Stark is going to be helping him in the future.
Got all that?
Good.
Inception Dom Cobb, the character played by Leonardo
DiCaprio in Inception, may not exactly be a traditional "hero" given that he's a thief,
but he's the protagonist of the movie and the guy you're rooting for, so he certainly
fits the bill here.
For the entire movie, Cobb concerned himself with whether or not he was dreaming or in
reality, and his totem - a spinning top - would tell him in either case.
If it kept spinning, Cobb was dreaming.
If it fell, he was awake.
The movie ended ambiguously, with Cobb walking away from his spinning totem after seeing
his children, and the entire point of that scene - as explained long after the movie's
release by director Christopher Nolan - was that Cobb no longer cared whether he was dreaming
or awake, because he was happy with his life regardless.
The Thing John Carpenter's horror classic The Thing
was about a parasitic extraterrestrial lifeform that assimilates other organisms and subsequently
imitates them.
It infiltrated an Antarctic research station and, at the end of the movie, only two members
of the research team were left alive - Keith Davids' Childs and Kurt Russell's MacReady
- and while it's obvious that one of them must have been assimilated, it's confusing
trying to fathom which one it is.
However, there is a subtle clue in the form of some foreshadowing earlier in the movie.
MacReady handed a drink to a cheating chess computer and, as he and Childs sit as the
only survivors, he does the same to Childs.
The parallels are obvious: Macready is the strategist calling the shots and he has the
alien all figured out.
Unfortunately, however, that probably means he was assimilated shortly after the movie
ended - after all, he was in the middle of nowhere with nobody there to help him.
X-Men: Apocalypse X-Men: Apocalypse is getting something of
a grilling from movie critics, but that doesn't mean that the movie didn't leave a lot of
exciting hints about the franchise going forward.
For starters, it looks like we're going to see Dark Phoenix in the future, as Apocalypse
saying "all is revealed" as Jean Grey unleashed her power was very ominous - as was her nightmare
that shook the X-Mansion.
You also have to expect that Quicksilver will reveal himself to Magneto as his son at some
point - and that will certainly result in an intriguing relationship.
Psylocke made a hasty escape after Apocalypse was defeated - there's every chance she might
join up with Deadpool and Cable in an X-Force movie in future, which would be awesome.
However, the most exciting thing came in the post-credits scene, as the reveal of a briefcase
marked "Essex Corp" in the Weapon X facility hinted towards the future appearance of Nathaniel
Essex - Mister Sinister himself - as a future big-bad in the franchise.
That will be absolutely amazing to see.
Birdman Birdman follows the exploits of a faded actor
called Riggan Thomson, played by Michael Keaton, as he struggles to come to terms with the
fact that his fame isn't what it once was.
Most famous for playing the titular superhero character Birdman, Thomson's frail mental
state has resulted in him seeing the character in hallucinations.
Towards the end of the movie, Thomson found peace after landing a role on Broadway.
Satisfied with life, and wanting to give an extra real performance, Thomson replaces a
prop gun with a loaded gun in a suicide scene and actually shoots himself in the head.
He doesn't die, however, and is later seen recovering in hospital.
The last time we see the character, he opens the window of his hospital room and is never
seen again.
In the final scene, his daughter Sam walks up to the window, looks down, then looks to
the sky and smiles.
Although it's quite tragic, what actually happened is that Sam saw her father's spirit
heading to heaven, where he will spend eternity in happiness.
Total Recall Total Recall tells the story of Douglas Quaid,
a construction worker in 2084 played by Arnold Schwarzengegger who is having troubling dreams
about Mars and a mysterious woman there.
At a company called Rekall that provides memory implants of vacations, Quaid decides to take
a fantasy memory trip as a secret agent to Mars.
Something goes wrong with his implant, however, and from then on the story continuously asks
the question of what is real and what is hallucination.
At the movie's climax, it is left ambiguous as to whether Quaid is dreaming or in reality,
but Paul Verhoeven - the movie's director - has claimed that everything is taking place
in Quaid's head and he's been rendered permanently stuck like that, thanks to the his brain having
a violent reaction to the implant process and including aspects of his real life into
his fantasy trip.
This makes a lot of sense, as far too many coincidences take place for everything that
goes on to be real.
Guardians of the Galaxy The ending to Guardians of the Galaxy wasn't
confusing, per se, but there were some important things (and some things that probably aren't
so important in the long-term) that you may have missed.
You will no doubt have caught Rocket Raccoon holding a sapling, and seen mini-Groot dancing
behind Drax's back, so you'll know the lovable tree-like humanoid is returning in the sequel,
but did you catch the post-credits scene?
The Collector was in his destroyed museum with two characters from the comic books - Howard
the Duck and Cosmo the Spacedog, who we may meet again in the future - but the scene served
as a timely reminder of the coming of a much more important character in the franchise.
We had previously seen a cocoon in the museum, but the devastation caused when it was destroyed
will more than likely have seen the character inside it disturbed from his regenerative
hibernation.
That character is Adam Warlock - and he will be a key character going forward in the Marvel
Cinematic Universe as a whole, as he will meet the Guardians of the Galaxy in their
sequel and his participation alongside them in the fight against Thanos in the Avengers:
Infinity War movies will be decisive when it comes to defeating the Mad Titan.
The Matrix Revolutions If you can understand most of what happened
in the three Matrix movies, well done to you, but nobody can know for sure exactly what
happened at the end of The Matrix Revolutions - that is apart from the Wachowski Brothers
who wrote it, of course.
An explanation actually comes from a cut scene in the video game The Matrix: The Path of
Neo, in which pixelated representations of the brothers say this: "Neo stands on the
verge of satori, ready to resolve the parodox of choice and choicelessness, free will versus
fate, but that can only be achieved through an act of surrender, which occurs after an
abandonment of the perspectile nature of truth, accepting the totality of present consciousness
which ultimately allows an evolutionary transition, transcending the Cartesian Dilemma through
emergence of de-limited spirit which then provides the world with a third path, the
Path of Neo, the path of peace."
And if that doesn't clear it up for you, basically, by referencing a lot of Eastern philosophies,
the Wachowskis are saying that Neo's mind and spirit have likely transcended into the
Matrix, covering it like a guardian angel or holy ghost.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman
was killed in battle against the monstrous Doomsday - a being created using the corpse
of General Zod from Man of Steel and the DNA of Lex Luthor.
As a tribute to his fallen fellow hero, Batman vowed to assemble a team of metahumans to
battle evil from that point onwards.
This was, of course, foreshadowing the coming of the Justice League to our cinema screens
and we will see the likes of Wonder Woman, the Flash, Aquaman and Cyborg in the team
in the future.
But something else happened at the end of Batman v Superman - a faint heartbeat was
heard and the dirt around Superman's coffin began to levitate!
Superman isn't actually dead!
In Man of Steel, particles of ice levitated around Superman the first time he flew, so
this is a throwback to that moment - and a sure sign that Superman will fly again.
Moreover, in the Death of Superman comic book arc, Superman didn't stay dead for too long
after a fatal collision with Doomsday - and you can rest assured he won't in the movies
either.
Deadpool After the credits rolled in the brilliant
Deadpool movie, the titular character re-emerged on screen from the bedroom of Ferris Bueller
from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, wearing a bathrobe identical to the one Ferris wore.
After some typically humorous babbling from Ryan Reynolds' character, he explains that
there will be a sequel to the movie and that Cable will be in it.
But exactly who is Cable?
Casual audiences probably don't know the character, but he is iconic in Marvel's comic books.
He's the telekinetic son of Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey called Madelyne Pryor - but
he can also time-travel - and he's actually appeared in a comic book title called "Cable
and Deadpool".
As he's from the future, expect him to travel back in time to join Deadpool for some violent
capers in the sequel.
You also have to imagine that Wolverine will appear alongside them in Deadpool's second
movie, given how many references to the character were made in the first one.
Thanks for watching our list of 10 confusing movie endings and what's next for the heroes
who starred in them.
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