Marvel Studios has found its director for Shang-Chi, its first superhero franchise starring an Asian protagonist. Destin Daniel Cretton will assume his spot in the director’s seat and Chinese-American screenwriter Dave Callaham will pen the screenplay. Cretton’s latest film Just Mercy – starring MCU’s Brie Larson and Michael B. Jordan – is in post-production.
Callaham is currently maintaining an impressive stack of credentials thanks to a few upcoming sequels. He’s co-written the DC Warner Bros. sequel Wonder Woman 1984 alongside Patty Jenkins and Geoff Johns as well as the initial drafts of Zombieland 2, which will go into production next January. He’s also been entrusted with the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse franchise and is currently writing the second installment. Oh, and he originated the Expendables franchise, so he maaay just know his way around an action scene.
Marvel seems to have a keen understanding of inclusion – something that continues to perplex other studios, somehow – and is looking to involve as many Asian and Asian-American talent as possible, both in front of and behind the camera. The same method certainly paid off with Black Panther, which took home three Oscars and a Best Picture nomination after dominating the box office. It is truly not a difficult concept, plus the necessary involvement of voices like Cretton and Callaham should help the film steer clear of some of the more cringeworthy stereotypes that tend to haunt those comics characters from the ‘70s.
[Via Deadline]
75 Comments
It might be pretty satisfying if Mark Wahlberg were to play the villain so this time he gets beat up by an Asian guy.
Can Groot beat him up too? To make up for that awful tree movie.
And Captain Marvel because, lets face it, we know he has probably been really shitty to women too.
No no that’s why he’ll also be in the Venom sequel so Michelle Williams can do it. I have not seen Venom, just an fyi, so I’m not aware what happens to her character.
Tree movie? I rather blame Shamilan because he kept that fucking cut in, also, the rest of the movie. Mr. It’s a TWIST!
The only good part about Mark Walberg is when he is playing a buffoon on purpose.
A proper kung fu MCU movie sounds great.
But will they have the same action filming unit? Because their hand-to-hand, outside of Captain America (and I think the Russo Bros do that themselves?), is muddy and hard to follow.
It’s tough to film kung fu fighting because those cats are fast as lighting.
I’ve also heard it’s a little bit frightening.
Frankly, it’s a little bit frightening.
The cinematographers have to have expert timing.
I don’t doubt their qualifications at all, but “Cretton and Callahan” sounds like a pair of Southie cops from a ‘70s TV show.
So…is this guy basically the Asian Hawkeye?
There’s a version of the character where there are multiple copies of of the same guy, and he create additional copies so that could be interesting.
They stole that idea from Multiplicity.
…Except originally, he was the Son of Fu Manchu! back when Marvel had the rights to the Sax Rohmer character / walking racist trope. They now no longer refer to Shang-Chi’s father by that name, but it’s an interesting history to address/rewrite in a film with a Chinese protagonist.
Maybe they can make him the son of the real Mandarin, to tie him into the existing MCU backstory.
Alternatively: no, but for some reason Ben Kingsley is back as the fake Mandarin.
And before they had the rights, they created Yellow Claw to be the nemesis for FBI Agent Jimmy Woo. I would have Jimmy Woo appear in Shang-Chi.
The MCU still has some version of the Mandarin kicking about, they could use him.
This is a bad example if you’ve only seen the show, which absolutely destroyed using Iron Fist as an example, BUT, Shang-Chi is such a capable fighter that the only reason Iron Fist can actually beat him is because of the Iron Fist power.In an actual hand to hand fight, Shang-Chi could beat anyone.
Destin Daniel Cretton’s body of work seems pretty minimal, although I hear Short Term 12 was good. Callaham is currently maintaining an impressive stack of credentials thanks to a few upcoming sequels. He’s co-written the DC Warner Bros. sequel Wonder Woman 1984 alongside Patty Jenkins and Geoff Johns as well as the initial drafts of Zombieland 2, which will go into production next January. He’s also been entrusted with the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse franchise and is currently writing the second installment. Oh, and he originated the Expendables franchise, so he maaay just know his way around an action scene.So a bunch of movies that can’t really be evaluated because they’re not out and an absolute mess of an action franchise? Not exciting. His iMDB says he also wrote the Doom movie with the Rock and Godzilla, both of which were terrible. Jean-Claude Van Johnson is supposed to be good, so he’s not completely awful, but it’s not the best sign.
Short Term 12 is one of the best movies of the decade.
Then I’ll have to get around to watching it, although no matter how good it was it seems like something where not all the skills needed for a Shang-Chi movie would really translate. Then again, the same is true for the Russos.
Russos had Modern Warfare on Community which, yes, was a tv show, but still had really legible and thrilling action sequences. Cretton probably can’t be worse than what Webb did in The Amazing Spider-Man (hampered by a shitty script by Kurzman and 9/11 truther Orci) to take another indie filmmaker given the helm to a major action movie.
Cretton probably can’t be worse than what Webb did in The Amazing Spider-ManYou’re not wrong, but “not worse than Webb’s Spider-Man films” is a really unimpressive claim. And I think a Shang-Chi film is probably more action-dependent than a Spider-Man one.
I personally found the directing one of the TASM movies’ strong points. It’s the story and script that were lacking.
Hell, IMO Russos’ action scenes on Community topped their Civil War action scenes.
Modern Warfare was not the Russos. That was Justin Lin.The Russos did the Western one the following season.
Oh whoops, you were right. I knew they did a paintball one, but I thought it was the first. Those two other ones, especially since they switched genres between episodes, also had some good action.
The trouble with Shang Chi is (IMO) Fu Manchu is essential.
I think Marvel’s current method of “it’s clearly Fu Manchu but we can’t call him that anymore” works well enough.
Fu Manchu is essential. Bah. Marvel can just use Yellow Golden Claw. Claw is a Fu Manchu manque, anyway, so they can save money on the knock-off version.
“he also wrote the Doom movie with the Rock and Godzilla”Lol, what??
I could have phrased that better. He wrote the Godzilla movie that wasted Bryan Cranston, and the Doom movie with The Rock and Karl Urban.
I dunno. I liked your Kinja-fied original better.
“Doom movie with the Rock and Godzilla, both of which were terrible”The things that get done to the english language on this site …Doom was boring, and Godzilla was lots of fun, provided you weren’t one those people that popped a stiffy whenever Cranston was on screen. Please save terrible for actually terrible movies. Not like we don’t have a shortage of those.
The things that get done to the english language on this site …Please save terrible for actually terrible movies. “People exaggerating? While critiquing a film they didn’t like? It could only be on the AV Club, and nowhere else.”
The cast list for Short Term 12 is amazing. Larson pre-Room, Rami Malek before Mr. Robot, Lakeith Stanfield’s first movie, Stephanie Beatriz before B99.
Perhaps you should look at that as ‘being hired to write sequels to two massive hits’. They don’t just hand those things out to randos on the bus, you know. All in all, I think you’re really undercutting this guy.
They don’t just hand those things out to randos on the bus, you know.Sometimes they do. Look at all David S. Goyer’s work, or how the guy who wrote X-Men 3 is also somehow writing Dark Phoenix. Or look at the entirety of Akiva Goldsman’s career. “Big project” doesn’t come close to translating into “automatically talented”.
No, it doesn’t, but if you’re not an asshole and occasionally write or create something worthwhile that people like, you will continue working. Is this guy a genius? Maybe not. But you act like he’s scrawling MOMMY on bathroom walls with his own shit and calling it high art.
Godzilla was a waste. Doom was just bad. The Expendables is masturbatory. The fact that he’s been put in charge of writing some superhero sequels doesn’t change my opinion on his current body of work.
I bet your screenplay is great, though.
Do I have to be a writer to criticize a badly written movie? Because that would be a pretty dreadful system. I don’t have to be able to design a phone from scratch to tell you if my phone is terrible.
Lighten up, Francis.
There’s nothing unreasonably grumpy about saying a writer seems inept.
But there are plenty of things unreasonably boring about conversing with someone with no sense of humor, no sense of compromise, clearly no idea how things actually work, and no desire to meet the person they’re talking with anywhere even near the middle for the sake of bettering and widening the parameters of said conversation.So yeah. Lighten up.
I don’t see how you can reasonably draw those conclusions from someone saying that a writer’s body of work seems unimpressive.
If you knew anything about how Hollywood works, you’d know that the screenwriter is always at the bottom rung of the creative team on any movie. Directors rewrite scripts all the time, and by “rewrite” I don’t mean “open the file in Final Draft and write new scenes and dialogue, thereby creating a document that can be dated and credited”, I mean “decide right then and there on the set to shoot something completely different, most likely asking the actors to come up with their own lines.” This on top of the fact that they can cut an entire plot- and/or characterization-crucial scene during editing simply because they didn’t like the lighting.For every writer you can name with clunkers in their resume, there are thousands more wannabes who never sold a script because they don’t have the basic storytelling craft to write a script that sells. That’s what credits on IMDB means – nothing more (“can he write an adaptation of my personal favorite IP to my personal satisfaction?”) and nothing less (“is he a shitty writer or what?”).
I know rewrites are prevalent, but when none of the films you’ve written have turned out well I have no reason to believe the next one will.
The master Kung Fu. Hell yeah.
should help the film steer clear of some of the more cringeworthy stereotypes that tend to haunt those comics characters from the ‘70s. I’m not sure about this. Sure, it’s a good idea to remove the racial stereotypes of that era, but the characters should reflect the time they were created in. Luke Cage did, and it was a success. Iron Fist didn’t, and it was Iron Fist.That and I hate the word “cringeworthy” and hope it ends up on the same pile where “bromance” now resides.
I dunno – this character is pretty C-list, and it just sounds like the umpteenth kung-fu flick or an Iron Fist remake. I’d root for a Sunfire or Jubilee flick first over this dude. Or how about just race-swapping one of the other traditional, stale heroes? Like an Asian Black Panther could be cool!
Marvel seems to have a keen understanding of inclusion I don’t know about that. Took them 21 movies to star a woman and 18? to star a minority as a lead.
A keen sense of inclusion or maybe just looking to make tons of money in Chinese cinemas. Nah… probably something about inclusion.
They already make a ton of money at Chinese cinemashttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_China
Okay. Now I am dying to see Kung Fu Yoga and
The Ex-File 3: The Return of the Exes.
Not Hello Billionaire?
Kung Fu Yoga was released direct-to-video in America, so you’re in luck.
Yeah, I mean, look at Black Panther, whole lotta pandering to China there.
Yeah, I think it’s more they have a keen sense of how the media and Twitter will skewer them if they hire a white person.
As much as I love Marvel, their “inclusion” is, first and foremost, pandering. Captain Marvel was promoted heavily as a big female-led, “HER”-powered movie, but the movie itself wasn’t really saying anything or making a statement about women or feminism in general, aside from the “girls are considered weaker than boys” backstory.
Then there is the shitstorm that is Valkyrie’s backstory, which is totally 100% canon even though it was all cut and we have only been told in interviews about.
Its hard to argue with Marvel’s penchant for working with indie directors, given the creative and commercial success of the formula. Even Captain Marvel, the weakest entry from a indie director imo, was still solidly entertaining. But that film also points out the importance of a director who can impose a strong vision of their own — like Waititi or Coogler did — over Marvel’s standard scaffolding. The pairing of an indie director and a genre writer, both of whom bring the influence of an ethnic identity to the project, worked very well for Black Panther, so it will likely succeed here.I think the bigger question for me is who is going to be the action director. Is Yuen Woo-Ping still involved? If not, Sammo Hung or Donnie Yen immediately leap to mind as candidates. Marvel’s record of creating great hand to hand combat scenes is spotty. There are certainly great moments, like the Winter Soldier elevator scene, but most of the work is not up to the caliber of major asian choreographers, Leitch, Stahleski, or even some of the better DTV directors. Obviously, it would be culturally awkward (and a missed opportunity) to not bring in some of the best Asian action directors in the business.Finally, I really they get Chow Yun Fat to play Shang Chi’s father. There are certainly other major Chinese actors, like Andy Lau, who could bring gravitas to the role, but CYF probably has the most nostalgic appeal for western audiences, and presents the opportunity for the film to homage to his John Woo bullet ballets as well as kung fu films. And Chow Yun Fat can be a delicious villain (watch him in Curse of the Golden Flower or Let The Bullets Fly).
Anyone who has seen Once a Thief knows exactly how awesomely hammy CYF can be. Heck, one of my complaints about Western CYF is that the only two movies that allowed him to goof off at all are Bulletproof Monk and fuckin’ godforsaken Dragonball Evolution. All other Hollywood movies I can think of where they cast him basically required him to play the Stoic Foreigner (Who Occasionally Tries to Mack on the White Girl).
CYF was in a Pirates of the Caribbean also. The movie was so so, but he was pretty good and nonstoic as a pirate leader.
I remember being intensely disappointed in his role, which is why I put in the whole thing about macking on the white girl (“died trying to put the moves on Keira Knightley” made me more than a bit uncomfortable, as attracted to her as I was). I was hoping they’d make him as loopy as Jack, as some of the interviews I saw mentioned him playing pranks because he’s a pirate and can get away with whatever. But I guess I’ll have to watch again to see how he plays it with a decade’s perspective.
It’s probably not worth a rewatch, just an example of when he didn’t play stoic Asian for a western film. I don’t think any movie he’s made in the west ever did justice to his talent or range (not that he needs that validation).
Cretton made three movies with Brie Larson, so it seems like a safe bet that Marvel’s latest huge star might have had some sway to bring him to the MCU.Callaham has written a bunch of unproduced stuff and done a lot of doctoring (including Ant-Man), which is how a lot of writers with seemingly dubious filmographies end up with these big gigs.
If they don’t find some part in this for James Hong I will burn Marvel to the ground.
So I’m assuming they will just retcon his dad being Fu-Manchu.
I’m relieved they didn’t tap Scott Buck.