As the final solitary Marvel movie to precede Avengers: Infinity War, the post-credits scenes of Black Panther were always going to be the subject of heated debate.
And sure enough, ever since the film’s U.S. launch on February 16th, enthused fans have pored over both after-credits stingers in an attempt to decipher what they mean for T’Challa and the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in general.
The first is relatively routine, as it shows the moment when Chadwick Boseman’s new-fangled king begins sharing Wakanda’s incredible resources with the rest of the world. But the second credits scene is where things really get interesting, as we watch Bucky Barnes being nursed on the road to recovery. He’s come on in leaps and bounds, too, and while we don’t get to see very much of what the character’s been up to in Wakanda, there was originally going to be a lot more to it.
At least, that’s according to Sebastian Stan, who recently said the following:
There was something really actually funny about that scene. It’s definitely better the way it is now, I think. But that scene was at least 8 more minutes long than what we saw. And it was like a more inquisitive Bucky. He was kind of really going, ‘Why do they call it these?’ And [Shuri] was telling him a little about it, and they kind of walk in a direction, and then he walked over and started hanging out with elders and playing with the kids, but you don’t see that.
Certainly, it would have been interesting to see more of Stan’s fan favorite in Wakanda, getting used to the culture and interacting with the people who live there. That being said, 8 minutes (or more) for a post-credits scene is far too long, especially given the film’s runtime (134 minutes). Plus, this was really T’Challa’s movie, not Bucky’s. While it’s fine for the former Winter Soldier to show his face for a bit, it would’ve felt wrong placing that large a focus on him after the film had already ended.
It looks like they made the right decision, too, as with more than $1.3 billion already in the Wakandan bank, Black Panther has cemented its status as a box office monster and one of the MCU’s finest efforts yet. It’s a success story that brought Ryan Coogler to tears, too, and though Marvel is yet to announce anything official, the director is surely weighing up a potential return to Wakanda in the not-so-distant future.
Closer to home, though, you can catch both Bucky and T’Challa later this month in Avengers: Infinity War, which drops into theaters on April 27th.
