Despite being the third most recent movie in the MCU, Captain Marvel only opened in theaters four months ago, pulling in over a billion dollars worldwide at the box office. And how could it not?
After all, Marvel’s 21st film fell in between two Avengers movies; Infinity War, which set up Carol Danvers as Earth’s only hope against Thanos, and Endgame, which finally saw her go toe-to-toe with the Mad Titan. As such, many fans expected Captain Marvel’s post-credits scene to tie heavily into the latter movie, but had the directors went through with their original plan, audiences would’ve also seen another sequence tying into Thor: Ragnarok as well.
Over the closing credits of the pic, two scenes play out: The first is a mid-credits teaser that depicts Captain Marvel’s first meeting with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, setting the stage for Carol Danvers to track down Tony Stark and kicking off the events of Avengers: Endgame. The second post-credits sequence sees Goose, a Flerken in disguise, coughing up the Tesseract, which has played a major role in the MCU since its very first phase. However, it sounds like the second tag wasn’t in directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s initial plan, and was instead added once their first idea was scrapped.
Yet, to properly delve into that early proposal, we first have to talk about Captain Marvel’s big final battle, wherein our titular hero comes face-to-face with her former mentor, Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg. Arrogant and malicious, Yon-Rogg challenges Danvers to fight him without using her powers, as he knows she’s much stronger than himself. Danvers wisely shrugs off the request, incapacitating the villain with one bolt of her photon powers. She then straps him into his spacecraft, and shoots him out to space, leaving his fate open for a possible return in a sequel.
In a new interview with Digital Spy, directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck reveal that one of their original post-credits ideas was actually going to show where Danvers sent Yon-Rogg at the end of the film:
“We toyed with different ideas of where she might send him off to at the end, and one time we joked that maybe she sent him off and he ended up in Sakaar much like Thor: Ragnarok. We see his ship opening up in that junkyard and we know what’s coming for him.”
“An original end credits tag was Yon-Rogg ending up on Sakaar, but I think the tags we ended up with are pretty delightful.”
So, there you have it. Yon-Rogg was nearly sent to the gladiatorial planet we first saw in Thor: Ragnarok. While this would’ve made a nice treat for fans of the entire Marvel series, it probably would’ve left the more casual viewer a bit confused. Instead, the Flerkin scene ties in nicely to the larger lore, but is also pretty much contained to the two hour runtime that precedes it.
Tell us, though, would you have liked to see Yon-Rogg’s fate addressed in a Captain Marvel post-credits tag, or are you happy with the ones we got? Let us know in the comments below!
