Another weekend has passed and it seems Shang-Chi is still holding on to the top spot. It’s currently eyeing to end the Sunday with a total domestic of $176.1M after an incredible hold of 61%. It’s the second-best third weekend in September with $21M only beaten by the horror film It with $29.75M. The film is showing healthy legs and also benefits from a lack of competition. It went up against the new release of Clint Eastwood‘s Cry Macho, which is only eyeing around $4.7M over the three-day weekend. Unlike the Marvel Studios production, it’s also currently available via HBO Max and could see a strong drop on Sunday.
Currently, it looks like Ryan Reynold‘s Free Guy will take the second spot as it may pass the $5M mark this weekend. Other releases aren#t doing much better, as Cop Shop featuring Gerard Butler might miss hitting the $3M this weekend even with glowing reviews by critics. Its reception by viewers is telling a different story. It’s likely to end up on the sixth spot with horror films Candyman and Malignant ahead.
Shang-Chiand the Legend of the Ten Rings seem to indicate that the core audience is back in theatres, but not everything is quite where it used to be. Venom: Let There Be Carnage moved back to its October 1st release and with Dune on the horizon, the films might add some much-needed energy. The lack of a Chinese release is hurting some films, as it’s been the saving grace for F9: The Fast Saga and Godzilla vs. Kong. The latter pulled in almost around $200M from that market alone putting it ahead of the current domestic leaders.
Audiences have been praising Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings for the way it smoothly translates complicated comic ideas to the big screen. Among these adapted concepts was the function of the titular Ten Rings, which were simplified in the MCU for the sake of storytelling. However, Marvel VFX artist Sean Walker has revealed that this almost wasn’t the case. He explained in an interview with Comic Book:
The Ten Rings actually went through a range of color changes. At one point, each individual effect had its individual styled use of the Rings. For example, when Wenwu is creating a bustle out of them, or a whip, or projectiles, they actually had their own unique color scheme, they were all in a similar color palette.
Sean Walker
In the comics, the rings did not function as a singular unit like they do in the film. Instead, each ring had its own unique power and color-coding that its wearer could use at will. Walker’s comments indicate that the MCU almost stayed true to this before slimming the idea down. He continued to reveal that the different colors were almost used as a way to convey the story’s themes in a visual manner:
But in order to really clearly define this is Wenwu and this is Shang-Chi, we stuck to a much narrower color palette. So Shang-Chi’s colors actually mimic his mum’s color palette, so we looked to her for her greens and for yellows and greens. Especially in the initial fight between his parents.
Sean Walker
As anyone who has seen the movie would know, this range of color was eventually trimmed to just solid blue and orange. While the original idea was a good one, it’s probably for the best that the VFX team chose to simplify their effects. The result is a simple and appealing vision for the film’s climactic battle, and the rings functioning as a unit proved beneficial for the project’s action choreography.
There’s a lot to be excited about when a new Marvel Studios film hits theatres. Not only do we get a new entry in the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe, but get a new perspective on the world. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings introduced us to the dimension of Ta Lo, which introduced the world to the MCU’s first dragon. The existence of the Great Protector left us with many questions and it seems that there’s one aspect of the character we may have not noticed.
In an interview with ComicBook.com, one of the Weta Digital VFX supervisors, Sean Walker, revealed that they wanted to tie the film together with Easter eggs inspired by its theme of family. One of those being that the Great Protector’s eyes are based on Fala Chen, who plays Shang-Chi’s mother, Jing Li. They also tease that there are many other details that keep the character alive throughout the film.
We kept looking at Shang’s mother for reference for almost everything. Even the Dragon’s eyes were initially based off by Fala Chen’s eyes, the actress who played Shang’s mom.
Sean Walker
It’s a clever idea as his mother’s death plays an integral part in his journey, as it parallels that of Wenwu. His father’s grief lets him get manipulated by the Dweller in the Darkness while Shang-Chi works alongside the Great Protector. In a way, these two mystical creatures act as representations of what path they chose after her tragic death. It’s great to see how a simple Easter egg also can turn into a strong story-telling device similar to how Dormammu was played by Benedict Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange. It’ll be interesting to see what other hidden details are in the story.
Shang-Chi surprised many when one of its trailers revealed the grand return of Abomination. While we knew he’ll make an appearance in She-Hulk, we only heard that Tim Roth will reprise the role. There was no mention if he’ll show up in his human form, or if he’ll look similar to what he did in 2018’s The Incredible Hulk. The trailer changed all that when we got a more comic-accurate design for the character. Many didn’t even believe it was the same character at first, but the film’s recently released revealed that it is indeed the transformed Blonsky.
The new design still kept elements from the original, and Marvel Studios Senior Visual Development Artist, Anthony Francisco, took to Instagram to share a closer look at the character’s new design. He did get the more comic-accurate ears and green skin. Yet, the concept art reveals he still retains the protruding bones from his first design. It’s somewhat difficult to make out in the film but we might get a closer look once the Disney+ series drops.
It’s a great design and Marvel Studios likely will utilize these assets in the Disney+ series with some minor tweaks here or there. We’ll see if they point out the new design in the series, as Mark Ruffalo‘s Bruce Banner might be surprised. It would be perfect if Blonsky fights back by pointing out that he looks different from their last encounter. Hopefully, the wait isn’t too long until we get our first look at the legal comedy and the wacky part of the MCU it’ll introduce us to.
Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings has established itself as both a critical and popular success, carrying a strong 98% audience score and 92% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a Metascore of 71 and 7.6 user score at Metacritic. Financially, it has outperformed pandemic expectations and looks to have another good week or two in the tank. All that success combined with Kevin Feige and Destin Daniel Cretton’s comments which have indicated a sequel is essentially waiting to be given the green light mean that a follow up to Shang-Chi is an inevitability at this point. The first film was pretty well self-contained, but as is always the case found ways to connect itself to the MCU and leave some threads left to pull for potential sequels. What could we see in Shang-Chi 2? We have some thoughts…
The Capital Cities of Heaven
The pocket dimension of Ta Lo is integral to the plot of Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings. When Shang-Chi and Xialing first arrive in Ta Lo, they get a tour of the small town along with a history lesson: in short, there are other hidden cities that, like Ta Lo, are likely pocket dimensions. As we prepare for the Sacred Timeline debuts of Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk, it’s possible that Shang-Chi also laid the groundwork to bring Daniel Rand-K’ai, the Iron Fist, along for the ride as well.
Should Marvel Studios decide to take the leap (and make no mistake, bringing Iron Fist to the MCU will come with several big shit storms), a Shang-Chi sequel could easily make use of the pre-established idea of hidden cities to introduce the Capital Cities of Heaven and, should the want to make an absolutely incredible movie, center it around the Tournament of the Heavenly Cities. Introduced during Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction and David Aja’s run on Immortal Iron Fist, the capital cities of heaven are all mystical cities located in pocket dimensions around the Earth, each with their own Immortal Weapon or champion. Among those cities if K’un Lun whose champion is, of course, The Immortal Iron Fist. Every 88 years, 7 of the 8 cities converge into one breathtaking setting, the Heart of Heaven, and host a tournament that pits the Immortal Weapons against one another. Bringing the tournament to the big screen would provide MCU fans with a chance to meet characters such as Fat Cobra, John Aman and Tiger’s Beautiful Daughter while giving Feige a chance to reboot Danny Rand, Dog Brother #1 and the Bride of Nine Spiders, all of whom were done dirty in the Netflix series.
It wouldn’t take much imagination to shuffle things around enough to have Ta Lo be one of the Capital Cities and have Shang-Chi be their champion. Given Cretton’s effective use of flashbacks in the first film, it would be fun to watch him explore the rich history of these cities while introducing characters that could stick around for a while and have their own stories told down the line. Given what we learned in Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings, it’s safe to assume these cities already exist. Now it’s a matter of how badly the team at Marvel Studios wants to explore them.
The Atlas Foundation
Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings did a wonderful job of establishing the long history of the Ten Rings organization without telling us too much about either the organization or the rings themselves. We know the organization has existed for around 1,000 years and that during that time, Wenwu was known by many names, among them the Great Khan. Logically, if one organization has existed for a thousand years, so could another: The Atlas Foundation.
The Atlas Foundation’s origins date back to the time of Genghis Khan and have ties to him as each of the Foundation’s leaders have always been descendants of him. Given Wenwu’s long life, it’s entirely possible that he fathered more than the two children we met in Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings and that one of those children could have gone his or her own way from Wenwu and created a secret organization that has grown significantly over the last 1,000 years. This part of the sequel writes itself as, should this organization exist, both Shang-Chi and Xialing would be direct heirs of Wenwu and the rightful leaders of the Atlas Foundation. With Xialing now running the Ten Rings, it would make for some killer sibling rivalry if Shang-Chi took his place atop Atlas and used its resources to work against his sister.
Introducing the Atlas Foundation opens the door not only for another really cool dragon (Atlas has long been advised by the immortal lung dragon known as Mr. Lao) but could also pave the way for Jimmy Woo to enter the picture and open the door to an Agents of Atlas project as a direct follow-up.
Fin Fang Foom
When we found out that Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings would feature multiple dragons, NOBODY predicted we’d get the Great Protector and the Dweller-in-Darkness. Nobody is complaining about how great they worked out but fans are still crossing their fingers that the one we all thought was coming will show up and the mid-credits scene, while intentionally ambiguous, certainly leaves open the possibility we will see Fin Fang Foom in the sequel.
As the Avengers explain to Shang-Chi, his use of the Ten Rings activated a beacon that is calling to something ancient. Given the presence of Captain Marvel in the room, it’s easy to believe that this beacon is calling to something far away across the stars, however, that is never made explicit. The opening of the film leaves the origin of the Ten Rings intentionally ambiguous, stating only that Wenwu maybe found them in a crater or in a tomb, leaving room for a sequel to explore just exactly where they came from. Given his comic ties to the rings, it would be pretty great if the answer to that question came in the shape of He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains and Whose Back Scrapes the Sun.
Though his story has changed some over the years, Fin Fang Foom is an ancient being from the planet Kakaranthara from where his species, the shape-shifting Makulans, left to conquer other planets. FFF arrived in Ancient China prior to the 8th century and while his fellow Makulans went out to conquer, he was given a reserve role and put to sleep in a tomb. Eventually, the Mandarin ventured into the tomb and took the Ten Rings, Makulan technology that contained the souls of dead warriors, and woke the Foomster.
Again, the story writes itself and keeps its ties to the comic books while updating it to keep it fresh. Wenwu’s rings are clearly alien tech; the combination of that tech with Ta Lo’s magic could be just the catalyst to bring Foom out of his slumber and into the world where he would lay waste to it in the form of a giant dragon, giving Marvel Studios its very first Kaiju film. While Fin Fang Foom might seem like an Avengers-level threat (indeed the mid-credit scene with the Avengers leads us down that path), Shang-Chi is pretty powered up with the rings and could put up a fight against Foom and maybe even learn something new about the rings along the way.
The numbers are finally in and Shang-Chi continues to impress. In its second weekend, the Simu Liu-led film dropped around 53% from its first weekend and is on par with pre-pandemic performances by Marvel Studios. It currently stands at $35.8M in its second weekend after setting a new Labor Day weekend record. That is quite a difference from Black Widow‘s harsher 70% drop. To be fair, the latter also had a digital release simultaneously that managed to garner $125M on top since its premiere.
Its performance put it at the top spot for a second week in a row and gave Disney the confirmation to keep the rest of their 2021 slate as theater-only releases, which includes the ambitious Eternals. The only real competition the latest Marvel film had to face was the horror film Malignant that released to a very lukewarm $5.57M. With a C-grading on CinemaScore, it’s difficult to say how it’ll perform long-term. It’s also the first horror film to have a weaker performance in the pandemic.
The film’s performance definitely feels like the jolt of energy the Box Office needed. Even Black Widow‘s success was followed by some concern regarding the future of theater experiences. It’s also currently on par to surpass the first Phase 4 film’s overall Box Office to become the raining champ until the next major release. Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s trailer viewership may pin it as the champion to take the top spotfor 2021, but Eternals could still become quite a contender once it releases in November. We’ll have to wait until predictions are in Marvel Studios kicks of their marketing plan.
It’s been no secret that some upcoming Marvel Studios’ films were facing challenges with a potential Chinese release. The market is a welcome boost to international numbers, as it gave many films a second life. Currently, China is quite stingy with non-local releases, as F9 and Free Guys are the only films that really managed to enter the market. Shang-Chi and the Legends of the Ten Rings, as well as Eternals were already very uncertain, but it seems some comments from a 2017 interview with Simu Liu may have sealed Shang-Chi‘s fate.
In the interview with CBC, the actor opened up about stories from his parents where he called China a “third world” country. Even highlighting that “people were dying of starvation.” These kinds of statements are most likely going to make the rounds putting it on China’s radar. As such, it looks like the film won’t find its way into the market due to the necessity of approval.
Eternals is also facing a similar challenge due to Chloé Zhao‘s own history with openly discussing the Middle Kingdom. Her Oscar win was praised by China before comments surfaced and it took a very different direction. It doesn’t seem like Marvel Studios is putting all their bets on any releases, but there have been hints they are still hoping that the films find their way to the country.
It seems we might have just scratched the surface with Shang-Chiand the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ new location called Ta Lo. In the film, it’s the sanctuary of the Great Protector and many other mystical creatures of Chinese mythology. While we did get a brief history lesson on the purpose of the village, there was no real exploration beyond this specific location.
Luckily, it seems we’ve only scratched the surface as Marvel Studios producer Jonathan Schwartz hinted that we might learn more about this mysterious location in the franchise’s future, as they tried to get a clear confirmation where this mysterious dimension takes place within the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
I think more will be revealed about Ta Lo in the future. But I wouldn’t want to put a label on it just yet.
Jonathan Schwartz
He plays coy on if this is an additional dimension. The challenge is that the existence of the Multiverse parallel to other dimensions, as The Direct points out, creates the question of how the rules apply. It’s uncertain if this is some kind of pocket dimension connected. The fact we get to explore more of it is an exciting prospect, especially when they teased the existence of mysterious cities that once existed within this realm.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is tearing up box offices everywhere. For the many talented people involved, the film is a vehicle that’ll propel their names to the forefront of the mainstream. Comedian Bobby Lee was almost one of those people, as he revealed the missed opportunity in jest in his latest podcast. According to the Slept King:
I auditioned for it. Ronny Chieng beat me out and he always beats me out. I refuse to watch it, especially when they said, “Your audition was great! They loved it!” But thanks for the opportunity [laughs].
Now, the Slept King really didn’t miss out on a sizeable role as Ronny Chieng‘s role as the fight club announcer and middleman was only for a few scenes. That being said, it would have been nice to see the MadTV comedian in that brief appearance.
This isn’t the first time Bobby Lee has orbited around a comic book film, having previously auditioned for Randall Park‘s role in the first Aquaman film. His next big appearance is in the upcoming Borderlands film so maybe after that, he can finally snag a cool comic book role.
Shang-Chi and The Legend Of The Ten Rings features plenty of action. Each action set piece is bigger than the last until the film’s explosive third act. Now everything that leads into that action is surrounded by the heart of the movie: Jiang Li, mother of Shang-Chi, played by Fala Chen. Murphy’s Multiverse was fortunate enough to talk with Chen recently about her role, working with Tony Leung and more.
Chen’s Jiang Li makes a big impact as the moral center of the film. Chen addressed how she stepped into that central role:
I feel it was very natural for me to step into that role. I got to spend a lot of time with the cast prior to the beginning of filming. We trained together for so long that we hung out after our training sessions. We got to really know each other so well and we became best friends. So I think that really helped me to imagine some of the character I didn’t get to play with on screen but have a relationship with that was really helpful.
Chen gave director Destin Daniel Cretton credit for not only helping her create what is an entirely original character but also creating an authentic vibe for Ta-Lo, they mystical realm from which Jiang Li hails.
Then Destin (Director Destin Daniel Cretton), I have to give him so much credit for spending so much time with me to map out the journey of my character. He explained the backstories, and asked me what ideas I had for the character. There are imaginary backstories that we mapped out together. I feel like I was very lucky to not only play the character but have a lot of personal input as well. Here’s a small example particularly with the language. My character spoke Chinese in the film, and there are so many dialects in the Chinese language. Even with Jiang Li coming from Ta-Lo, which is a mystical village we wanted to be very specific about every word that she was using. It’s precise, it’s part of the spirit. The language we used is such an ancient, nuanced language we wanted to make sure it’s authentic. In order to do that we spent a lot of time with a translator. I had a lot of personal input in the translation of that. It was a lot of collaboration amongst us all.
Chen absolutely stole the show in her role, a role, as it turns out, she never auditioned for as Marvel Studios was eager to work with her.
I was offered the role and never had to audition for it, which was like, “What? “I was so honored and so happy. I almost didn’t even get the call that came through, because they’ve been tracking my availability. For a long time we didn’t know what the project was about. I had heard in the news that Shang-Chi was in the making, so I’ve been tracking it. We never know because they (Marvel) have been so secretive. I then went on a honeymoon with my husband. Then suddenly, my agent was trying to reach me and I didn’t hear from them for the longest time. Eventually we got a call from a satellite phone as we were literally out of this world, and they made an offer.
Jiang Li’s tragic story was such a necessary part of this movie. It provides the context for Shang-Chi, Xialing, and specifically Wenwu’s journeys. The opening scene between Chen’s Jiang Li and Tony Leung’s Wenwu was a beautiful homage to Asian cinema. Chen talked about that scene and working with Hong Kong legend Leung:
I have to say that was the most difficult scene to play but also the easiest thing to play. The difficult part obviously being the physical fighting. It was the intricate choreography and also being 50 feet in the air flipping around. Doing all that physically is really difficult as well as pretending to be such a master of a high power. At the same time the easiest part is looking into his eyes and just being a fan girl.
Chen also echoed the sentiments of much of the film’s Asian and Asian-American cast when asked how she felt being a part of the production that brought Marvel Studios first Asian hero the big screen
While I was a part of making this, I’m still kind of in disbelief that I’m lucky enough to be a part of this amazing story that’s going to be an historic film. Obviously not only for the Marvel Universe, but for especially the Asian-American community.
Marvel Studios Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings is in theaters now.
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