Why Fantastic Four Doesn’t Address Thunderbolts Post-Credits Scene

This post contains spoilers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps

The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman explains why the film doesn’t address the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene. A couple of months before Marvel’s First Family made their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut, audiences got their first tease of the characters in the Thunderbolts* stinger. The sequence depicts the New Avengers becoming aware of the Fantastic Four’s arrival in Earth-616. It felt like something that would be followed up on in First Steps, but that didn’t come to pass. According to Shakman, it was a matter of logistics, as the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene was added far too late in the process for him to reference it in the First Steps script.

“No, no, no, because the Thunderbolts* end credit scene was also created, you know, relatively late in my process too, so that was not something that I was familiar with because it hadn’t been created at the time that I was working on my script, you know?” Shakman said to CinemaBlend. “I often use the metaphor of it’s, you know, like a relay race, right? You pass the baton, you run your section of it as hard and fast as you can, do the best you can with your version of Fantastic Four – Earth 828, this world – and then you pass the baton, in this case to the Russo brothers.”

Rather than show the Fantastic Four traveling to Earth-616, the First Steps post-credits scene takes things in a different direction, giving fans their long-awaited first glimpse of Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom, who has taken a great interest in young Franklin Richards. Similar to the Thunderbolts* stinger, the First Steps button scene was directed by Joe and Anthony Russo during production of Avengers: Doomsday.

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Thunderbolts* director Jake Schreier told us that the film’s post-credits scene was an incredibly late addition to the movie. He said it was only shot roughly a month before Thunderbolts* opened in theaters. By that point, The Fantastic Four: First Steps was well into post-production.

Some fans might have liked if The Fantastic Four: First Steps shed additional light on the Thunderbolts* post-credits scene, but it’s understandable why that didn’t happen. If the footage for the Thunderbolts* stinger didn’t even exist until a few weeks before the movie hit theaters, there was no way the scene could have been referenced in a Fantastic Four script. As much as viewers like seeing connections between the various Marvel projects, Shakman couldn’t address something he wasn’t aware of. First Steps still had to work on its own merits as a movie with a beginning, middle, and end, so Shakman kept the whole thing set on Earth-828.

As for why the First Steps post-credits scene doesn’t connect to Thunderbolts*, there’s a good reason for that as well. Moviegoers have already seen the Fantastic Four arrive to the Sacred Timeline, so watching the same sequence play out from a different perspective wouldn’t have made as significant an impact. Fans know the Fantastic Four and the Avengers will cross paths in Doomsday, so Marvel opted to tease the next Avengers film in a different way. Now, there’s even more intrigue to theorize about. Perhaps Doom kidnaps Franklin and the Fantastic Four pursue him to Earth-616. Only time will tell.