8 Post-Credits Movie Scenes That Actually Led To Something Awesome

6. The Virus Spreads (Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes)

rise of the planet of the apes mid credits scene
20th Century Fox

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes had no right to be as good as it was, but thanks to some stellar visual effects and a great performance by Andy Serkis, it successfully presented the apes as victims, which made for a much more morally complex tale than if they were just jabbering barbarians.

The film's mid-credits scene follows a pilot - who is unknowingly infected with the ALZ-113 virus, which kills people it comes into contact with - as he heads into work. Of course, since he has to fly around the world and visit all sorts of different countries, he takes the virus with him, which causes it to spread, until it begins to decimate humanity. The scene concludes with a shot of an airport departure board, and then the rest of the credits feature a series of lines - representing the virus - slowly weaving their way around the planet.

This scene directly set up two incredible sequels that both topped the original - Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes and War For The Planet Of The Apes. These movies take place in the post-apocalyptic world created by the spread of the ALZ-113 virus, making Rise's mid-credits sequence an important part of the series' overarching story.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!