Destin Daniel Cretton has been a busy bee in recent years, having delivered to Marvel Studios projects such as “Shang-Chi & The Legend of the Ten Rings,” the recent Disney+ series “Wonder Man” (Season 2 has been greenlit and could go beyond that), and next month, audiences will get to experience “Spider-Man: Brand Newy Day” (taking on the Spidey sequel after pivoting from “Avengers: The Kang Dynasty” and got retooled into The Russo Brothers‘ “Avengers: Doomsday“). He’s now sharing an optimistic update concerning “Shang-Chi 2,” which many were under the impression had been scrapped alongside other gestating sequels/spinoffs.
The Deadline podcast “Crew Call with Anthony D’Alessandro” recently spoke with Cretton and “Wonder Man” showrunner/co-creator Andrew Guest, with the former explaining (via Dark Horizons) why we haven’t seen “Shang-Chi 2” (the first one earned a decent $432.2 million) after it was revealed in his production deal with Marvel and “Wonder Man” announcement years back that they were in early development on the sequel.
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“We are developing a second one…It was successful, but it actually came out weirdly. It was successful at a time when a new wave of COVID was hitting, so it was successful, but also, many countries were completely shut down to theatres at the time. After that, there were just crazy changes all over the place. It’s just a result of the industry [recalibrating],” Cretton said of the status of the sequel.
Another likely factor behind the second installment’s delay is that “Shang-Chi” star Simu Liu will be part of the massive character lineup in “Doomsday” and will hopefully cross-pollinate with a larger audience that showed up for the solo film. We have to assume that a mass audience seeing Shang-Chi in a HUGE event film like an “Avengers” movie could help push the needle to get more asses in seats for the next solo adventure (we’ll keep our fingers crossed that The Xian, The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, Immortal Weapons, the crime lord Sun Wukong and Fing Fang Foom are involved alongside Jackie Chan after his action flick “Supercop 2,” having quite an influence on the last one).
A post-credit scene from “Shang-Chi” revealed that the rings were sort of a cosmic beacon, likely connected to the ancient alien technology itself (Fing Fan Foom or The Xian behind them?). It remains to be seen if that scene will ever get paid off in any capacity moving forward or has some impact with “Avengers: Doomsday.”
You can listen to that full chat with Cretton below, and “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” swings into theaters on July 31.
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