Marvel is fast-tracking a Shang-Chi film adaptation that would make it the studios’ first Asian superhero movie franchise.
The studio has set Chinese-American writer Dave Callaham to write the screenplay and Marvel is already looking at a number of Asian and Asian-American directors who want to do something as potentially monumental as was accomplished with Black Panther. That film tied into African and African American cultures and the sensibilities of its nearly all-black cast, with a black director in Ryan Coogler and writer in Joe Robert Cole. The goal is to introduce a new hero who blends Asian and Asian American themes, crafted by Asian and Asian American filmmakers.
Writer Dave Callaham has strong credentials in the superhero and franchise-building realms e-and his own experiences as a Chinese-American will inform the Shang-Chi movie mythology. He recently co-wrote Wonder Woman 1984 and his is writing Sony’s animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2.
Shang-Chi first appeared in Special Marvel Edition #15 in December 1973, hatched by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. In the comics, Shang-Chi is the son of a China-based globalist who raised and educated his progeny in his reclusive China compound, closed off to the outside world. The son trained in the martial arts and developed unsurpassed skills. 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 and this deceit makes them bitter enemies.
Marvel has had good luck in the past working with directors of diverse backgrounds for their major film projects. Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck are directing next year’s Captain Marvel with Brie Larson; Ryan Coogler, will return to direct the Black Panther sequel; Taika Waititi directed Thor: Ragnarok; Chloé Zhao, who is set to direct The Eternals; and Cate Shortland, who will direct a stand-alone film for Marvel’s Black Widow starring Scarlett Johansson.
