Despite being released when moviegoers were still wary about heading into theaters, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings still grossed an impressive $432.2 million in 2021.
Three years on, we're still waiting to see Shang-Chi in action again. There was a period when it looked like the character would be a central focus of the Multiverse Saga as he was reportedly being lined up to take centre stage in Shang-Chi and the Wreckage of Time (a movie we expected Marvel Studios to announce at 2022's San Diego Comic-Con) and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty.
Plans have since changed and Shang-Chi's rings likely no longer have ties to Kang. Still, that's an easy retcon when they hail from Kakaranthara (the home of Fin Fang Foom) in the comics.
Rumour has it Shang-Chi will be a central character in Avengers: Doomsday, though work on the sequel has completely stalled now filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton has moved on to Spider-Man 4. That's not coming out until 2026, so there's no way Shang-Chi 2 is getting here before 2028 or 2029 assuming he still plans to direct.
Today, Simu Liu is receiving quite a bit of attention on social media for liking a comment from a fan who expressed frustration at the lack of progress on the follow-up.
We wouldn't read too much into this as he's likely just grateful for the support; however, it would be easy enough to understand if Liu is fed up with being sidelined after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was hailed by many as one of the best MCU movies to date.
It's unfortunate, but Marvel Studios' pivot away from Kang is likely why Shang-Chi is on ice; both the Ten Rings and Ms. Marvel's bangles were expected to have ties to the villain, with Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania making use of ring imagery for the Conqueror's time travel technology in the Quantum Realm.
With any luck, Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars can put the spotlight back on the master of the martial arts.
"Oh man, I don't know to be honest," Liu said earlier this year after being asked when Shang-Chi is likely to make his MCU return. "I mean, those things are so above my pay grade. I just wanna continue to be a fan of it. You know, when I get a call of like, 'Hey, this is what your in and this is where you're going to show up. And, this is when you're going to be need to be blacked out for.'"
"That's kind of generally what tends to happen. But, you know Destin is such a special filmmaker and we're very happy to have him on the sequel. So, he'll be working on that and we're really excited to see what he comes up with. I think he's going to do a brilliant job."
"There are a lot of ideas that we had in the opener, and some of those ideas are planted as questions, by the end of our movie. There are things that we potentially want to explore in the future," the Barbie star continued. "Everything changes so much, so it’s hard to say how many of those ideas will actually make it to the finish line, but there are many of them there."
Do you think we'll still get a Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings sequel in the next Saga of MCU storytelling?