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

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

Thanos Armour
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.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for almost nine years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. He has been writing and video editing for 10+ years, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers and uploading them to YouTube (they're admittedly a bit rusty by today's standards). If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order or to tell you about the making of 1988's Remembrance of the Daleks, Danny is the person to ask.