Avengers: Doomsday and the Never-Ending Torture of Movie End Credits

Marvel and DC have turned movie credits into a guessing game. With Avengers: Doomsday on the way, I’ve finally learned my lesson about waiting for one last scene.

I’ve learned my lesson. When Avengers: Doomsday arrives in theatres on December 18, 2026, I won’t sit around waiting for the credits to finish. I’ve had enough of that game. The movie ends, the lights come up, and I’m ready to go home. If Marvel has another surprise tucked away at the end, I’ll catch it later. I’m not spending another chunk of my life staring at names crawling up a screen just in case somebody appears for 15 seconds.

The hero saves the world, the villain gets flattened, a city is demolished, and an explosion big enough to wake the neighbors’ lights up the screen. The music swells, the credits begin, and you reach for your coat. Then somebody whispers, “Wait! There’s a post-credit scene!” Suddenly, everyone sits back down. Nobody wants to be the person who leaves early and misses Hollywood’s final surprise. We’ve become so trained to expect one more scene that even getting up to leave feels like a gamble.

Post-credit surprises didn’t begin with the Avengers. The Silencers (1966), a spy comedy starring Dean Martin as secret agent Matt Helm, is often cited as an early example of a film teasing another adventure after its story ends. From Russia with Love (1963) had also promised that James Bond would return, although through a written message rather than a separate post-credit scene. Marvel would take the idea to another level.

In 2008, Iron Man featured Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, hinting that Tony Stark was about to become part of something much bigger. That brief scene helped establish the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s promise that one movie might lead to another. Suddenly, leaving before the credits finished meant risking the next big reveal. DC joined in, too, but Marvel helped turn staying until the very end into a blockbuster ritual.

Modern blockbusters employ enormous teams of artists, technicians, editors and visual-effects specialists. Their names deserve recognition, but those credits can take a while to roll. Film researcher Stephen Follows examined 6,515 films released between 1920 and 2025 and found that the median end-credit sequence for films in the 2020s lasted five minutes and 43 seconds. For superhero movies, the median was seven minutes and nine seconds. That’s a long time to sit in the dark, hoping a familiar face appears.

Consider Avengers: Infinity War. Guinness World Records lists 5,109 credited individuals in the film’s IMDb cast and crew database, including 2,659 people in visual effects. That is a database count of credited individuals, not a verified tally of the names appearing in the film’s on-screen credits. The wider production workforce has been estimated at as many as 10,000 people, although that figure includes people who may not have received individual screen credit. Thousands of people helped bring Thanos, Iron Man and the rest of the gang to life. They deserve their recognition, but those numbers give you an idea of the scale behind a modern blockbuster. And somewhere in that parade of names, you’re still hoping Marvel has one more surprise waiting for you.

That got me thinking. I did some math of my own, using estimated credit lengths of 10 to 12 minutes for 38 Marvel Cinematic Universe films and seven to 10 minutes for the 15 films in the DC Extended Universe. Based on those assumptions, my calculation comes to somewhere between eight hours and five minutes and 10 hours and six minutes of credits. These are estimates, not totals measured from every film.

That’s potentially enough time to watch four or five two-hour movies. Instead, we’re sitting in the dark, watching names crawl up a screen and hoping somebody will appear to tease the next blockbuster. Imagine all those credits rolling together, accompanied by a dramatic musical score, with no complicated plot and absolutely no guarantee that anything interesting is coming at the end. It might be the longest movie nobody actually wanted to see.

Naturally, I went looking to see whether somebody had already gathered all those credits in one place. YouTube has compilations of Marvel’s post-credit scenes, collecting the little surprises that keep fans glued to their seats. But I couldn’t confirm that anyone has stitched together every full Marvel and DC end-credit sequence into one continuous marathon. The post-credit scenes are one thing. Watching hours of names roll past without interruption is an entirely different endurance test. If someone has actually done it, I would love to know whether they made it to the end or had to call for help.

Of course, sometimes a post-credit scene is worth the wait. A clever reveal can set up the next adventure, a surprise appearance can thrill fans, and a final joke can be the perfect dessert after a long cinematic meal. Other times, you sit through hundreds of names for a few seconds of sequel promotion, or discover there is no surprise at all. Eventually, you have to ask whether that final scene is worth missing the chance to beat the traffic out of the parking lot.

If you really wanted to make the experience unbearable, though, you could turn it into a punishment worthy of a Marvel villain. Picture the Red Skull locking an Avenger in a dark room, forcing them to watch every last credit from every Marvel movie, followed by every DC movie, with no bathroom breaks and no way to fast-forward. Every time the captive thinks it’s finally over, another name appears. Then another. The Red Skull doesn’t even need to torture anyone physically. Just tell them there’s a post-credit scene coming and make them wait for it.

Still, I have a better idea for Hollywood. If you’re going to keep us sitting in the dark for 20 minutes, at least give us an ending worth the wait. Imagine the credits finally coming to a stop. The music swells, the screen goes black, and suddenly an ordinary guy walks into view. He looks straight at us, completely serious, and says, “You could have gone home.”

That’s it. No mysterious figure lurking in the shadows, no villain promising revenge, no hint of another cinematic universe. Just some guy who has stolen 20 minutes of your life and seems awfully pleased with himself. I’d probably laugh, even while wondering why I hadn’t left when the first names started rolling.

Maybe that’s the real joke. Hollywood has convinced us that leaving early means we might miss something important, so we sit there like loyal recruits waiting for the next mission. We’ve survived the explosions, the final battle and the emotional goodbye, only to find ourselves staring at a screen full of names, waiting for permission to leave.

And honestly? When Avengers: Doomsday finishes, I think I’ve earned the right to walk out. If there’s a secret scene, I’ll find it later. The Red Skull can keep his torture chamber. I’ve got better things to do.