Marvel Studios Hires a Director For Their Martial Arts Film SHANG-CHI
A few months ago it was announced that that Marvel Studios was looking to develop to an adaptation of the comic book series Shang-Chi.
Thanks to Deadline, we’ve learned that Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle) is set to direct the film, which will be the first superhero movie tentpole franchise with a lead Asian character. The studio previously hired Chinese-American scribe Dave Callaham (Wonder Woman 1984, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2) to write the script.
The studio wanted to find a director who wants “to do something as potentially monumental as was accomplished in Marvel’s first viable Best Picture candidate, Black Panther.” They obviously found that in Cretton.
For those of you not familiar with Shang-Chi, the character first appeared in Special Marvel Edition #15 in December 1973, and was created by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. He is the son of a sinister Chinese mastermind and was raised and trained in the martial arts by his father and his instructors. He is described as a spy, a romantic, a philosopher, and an Avenger and is one of the best martial artists in the Marvel universe.
He is eventually introduced to the outside world to do his father’s bidding, and then has to come to grips with the fact his revered father might not be the humanitarian he has claimed to be and is closer to what others call him: The Devil’s Doctor. He also might be centuries old. The deceit makes them bitter enemies.
The film adaptation is also said to “modernize the hero to avoid stereotypes that many comic characters of that era were saddled with. The comic launched around the time that Enter the Dragon became a global sensation and martial arts films raged.”
I love that Marvel is going to make a martial arts film and I can’t wait to see how it turns out! What do you hope to see from the film?
Cretton is currently directing a film called Just Mercy, which stars Brie Larson and Michael B. Jordan.