Fans clown 'Captain America: Brave New World' post-credits scene teasing the Illuminati: "Yet another end credit reveal that goes nowhere"

Captain America: Brave New World was released on February 14, 2025, and this movie is more concerned with Sam Wilson showing he's got some real wingspan to bear the shield. But everyone's talking about that one, singular post-credits scene that Marvel chose was sufficient this time around.

By some behind-the-scenes whispers, an early version of the movie had explicit references to the Illuminati. Not the real-world shadowy conspiracy—but Marvel's take, a cabal of powerful superheroes. When asked about it in an interview with The Wrap, director Julius Onah acted coyly:

“There was going to be an Illuminati, at one point in this script. Who was in your Illuminati? Because we saw them in 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,' I need to know who was in yours,” the interviewer asked.

Onah replied:

“I’m not going to say! I’m not going to say (laughs). Let’s just say things are purposely left vague in that post-credit for a reason.”

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Social media reactions

Even though social media is mostly occupied with whats and whatnots, some people went into roast mode out of dissatisfaction. While they "purposely left vague" everything about Illuminati, seems like users did not enjoy it. One X user declared:

"Great, yet another end credit reveal that goes nowhere."

These post-credit scenes are starting to feel like those ‘to be continued…’ screens from shows that never got renewed.

A user stated:

"Absolutely nobody got this out of that scene because it was executed so poorly. This is so random."

If your big reveal needs a follow-up explanation tour, you probably fumbled the bag. Another user said:

"What a missed opportunity! No one knows what it was referencing due to how vague and lame it was."

Imagine teasing something so badly that everyone is confused.

A user went on to serve a spicy roast, saying:

"How sad where we live in a world where we have to see what the director meant in an interview about their vague, poorly written scenes instead of actually writing a good script."

A user mentioned:

"I think i watched the wrong post credit scene or something lol."

Nah, you just expected clarity in a Marvel movie.

Yet another user said:

"Never in a million years would I have guessed that's what the scene was suggesting. Multiverse? Sure. Illuminati? No."

Maybe it wasn’t that deep, to begin with. Just saying.

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The behind-the-scenes scoop of Captain America: Brave New World

While the typical mid- and post-credits scenes buffet that Marvel enthusiasts gorge upon, Brave New World presented us with only one. But where it falls short in numbers, it compensates with dark, cryptic threats that imply great multiversal problems could be brewing.

In the scene, Sam Wilson's Captain America (Anthony Mackie) enters The Raft—Marvel's high-tech supervillain holding facility, where Samuel Sterns (played by Tim Blake Nelson) awaits him.

If you are thinking, who?, Sterns was last seen in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, where he was all about that gamma radiation life. And now he is looking extra mysterious. And then, he drops the line—the one that has every fan scrambling to connect dots:

"We share the same world, don't we? This world you would die to save. It's coming. I've seen it in the probabilities, seen it plain as day. All you heroes protecting this world, do you think you're the only ones? Do you think this is the only world? We'll see what happens when you have to protect this place from the others."

The actual reason why this post-credits scene is in its present form is the writers' strike. The entire production was shot very late in the process. Director, Julius Onah told Collider:

"We didn't know what our post-credit scene was going to be just yet. As you know, there was a massive writers’ strike, so that meant it was pencils down not just on this movie, but pencils down on everything in film and TV."

"Nothing was happening. So, who knew what Thunderbolts was going to look like necessarily? Or the next Avengers was going to look like?" he added.

So, rather than a sprawling setup for the next large-scale crossover event, we're treated to a cryptic, vague hint at some impending, maybe Illuminati-connected, multiverse danger.

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Hype or disappointment?

Marvel post-credits scenes have created wildly high expectations. Some fans are looking forward to the multiverse repercussions, others are not so happy for how little this tells us.

Compared to past jaw-droppers that set up Thanos or hyped-up upcoming blockbusters, this one is more on the soft ominous foreshadowing side.

With Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars coming up, this could be the small thread that unravels something gigantic.