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During this year’s much-anticipated Marvel panel at Comic-Con, it was officially announced that Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings was set to come out in the next couple years as part of newly-announced (or at least newly-confirmed) Phase 4 for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And that wasn’t the only bit of information we discovered about the forthcoming superhero blockbuster. We also learned that actor Simu Liu would be playing the title role in this brand new superhero film, which is expected to start production shortly.
While there was a great deal of speculation about Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings, the Comic-Con panel made it totally official, and it also allowed more information to arise in the days and weeks since. We are still in the very early stages of the project, and the details surrounding this film can be a little hard to confirm. Nevertheless, we wanted to provide a rundown of all the information we’ve known and heard so far in one comprehensive list.
Let’s break down what we know about Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings — especially during the very early days of this project, which is currently expected to be in the pre-production stage. Clearly, we can’t confirm everything right now, but we’ll do our best to provide what information we can.
What Is The Release Date Of Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings?
During this year’s Comic-Con panel, when the project was officially announced to the public, it was also revealed that Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings would be released on February 12, 2021. That’s a bit of a short window between now and then for a superhero movie, but it sounds like Marvel is well into pre-production work on the film — even if it wasn’t formally revealed to be a thing until recently. But, there is still quite a lot of work left to do for Shang-Chi to make its release date.
When (And Where) Is Filming Expected To Begin?
Shortly after the Comic-Con panel made it official that Shang-Chi was coming to a theater near you in the near future, it was revealed (or, at least, speculated) by the folks over at Collider that the comic book adaptation would begin filming in August 2019 in Sydney, Australia. This location is also expected to be home to the production of Thor: Love and Thunder (which won’t film for quite some time yet) while The Eternals is also expected to begin filming later this year, but with no firm location revealed right now.
Who Is Playing Shang-Chi (And Who Else Is In The Ensemble)?
As it was announced by producer and Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige at this month’s Comic-Con, the title role of Shang-Chi will be played by Canadian actor Simu Liu. It is possible that for a lot of American viewers, the 30-year-old (who stars on the Netflix comedy Kim’s Convenience) is not someone they’re familiar with — not yet, at least. And, the newly-announced Marvel star played coy when it came to his casting, feeling liberated to show his cheeky sense of humor on Twitter when it came to this big news.
In addition to Simu Liu, Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is also slated to star Tony Leung Chiu-wai as The Mandarian (which should not to be confused by the fake iteration of the character played by Sir Ben Kingsley in Iron Man 3) and rapper / actress Awkwafina (Crazy Rich Asians) as a character who isn’t yet confirmed.
Who Is Directing Shang-Chi?
The big San Diego panel also confirmed that Destin Daniel Cretton will direct this newest Marvel movie. The filmmaker is currently best known for his well-acclaimed independent film, Short Term 12, which starred a pre-fame Brie Larson, LaKeith Stanfield, Stephanie Beatriz, and Rami Malek, among several others. He also directed Larson in the more critically-divisive adaptation of The Glass Castle, while his next movie, Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, O’Shea Jackson Jr. and (you guessed it) Brie Larson is expected to be an early frontrunner for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings will undeniably be the filmmaker’s biggest and most ambitious effort. It’s also quite easily Destin Daniel Cretton’s most expensive movies, having primarily made micro-budget indies to mid-budget projects thus far. But, the talent is clearly on display, and it’ll certainly be interesting to see the director expand himself into a movie of this size and scale. Hopefully, it’ll also cause more people see the awesome Short Term 12.
Who Is Writing Shang-Chi?
Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings is currently slated to be penned by Dave Callaham, an experienced screenwriter with a good deal of experience in the superhero field already. The screenwriter reportedly did some uncredited production rewrites for Ant-Man, and he also wrote The Expendables, Godzilla (2014) and 2005’s Doom, alongside other writers. He also created the short-lived Amazon series, Jean-Claude Van Johnson.
Most presently, Dave Callaham is one of the screenwriters behind Wonder Woman 1984, and he also had a hand writing this fall’s zombie sequel, Zombieland: Double Tap, alongside returning screenwriters Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick. Additionally, he is also expected to be writing the forthcoming sequel to last year’s wonderfully impressive Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. At the moment, Dave Callaham takes on the writing reigns solely for Shang-Chi. Though, with productions as big as this one, there are usually a few other screenwriters who find themselves involved later on and that may be the case here at some point.
Who Is Shang-Chi?
Based on the character created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin, he made his first appearance on the comic book scene in 1973 in what is considered the “Bronze Age” of comic books. The character is most well-known as an expert martial artist, proficient in a number of fighting styles. He can also create duplicates of himself in later comics, and he joins the Avengers later on. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Surely, those are additions that are set to arise in (hopefully) later films. For now, one would imagine, we’ll simply be introduced to the character in his early days.
In the beginning, the character in the comics was considered to be the son of Fu Manchu, which is something that was often underplayed in later stories. Therefore, it’s a bit unclear if this connection will be found in the movies or if that’s something they’ll sidestep. Nevertheless, there is a great deal of information to be gleaned from this character in the comics, and we broke down his origins and the details of his personality in quite a bit of detail in this new piece.
There are several reasons to be excited about this new Marvel blockbuster, from the talented cast to the esteemed, up-and-coming director to the promise of having a huge martial arts movie inside the Marvel Cinematic Universe. For now, though, details are limited, but we’ll continue to keep you posted.
