‘Shang-Chi’ almost had a much more cosmic look to its post-credits scene

The art book for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has revealed that the original film almost had a very different look for its post-credits scene.

If you cast your mind back to 2021, a whole six MCU films ago, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings contained a post-credits scene where Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) were taken to Kamar-Taj. Wong (Benedict Wong) introduces the pair to Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) to investigate the origin of Shang-Chi’s ten rings.

While the original scene took place in a study or library, with the two Avengers appearing as holographic projections, the art book for the film reveals that the scene had a few alternate looks. You can take a look at the alternate versions of the location above. As you can see two of the locations look more mystical than the environment in the film, whereas one looks like it’s in an Egyptian wing of a museum, perhaps as a tie-in to Moon Knight. 

As of writing, we do not know the significance of the post-credits scene, and which other MCU projects it might be tied to. If we look at the alternate futuristic-looking concept art, it almost looks like Kang’s environment in the Quantum Realm from Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, perhaps pointing in the direction of Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. However, there is also the chance that we could be wrong completely, and they are in the Mirror Dimension.

The dark void look does look similar to where the Ancient One took Doctor Strange when the pair first met in Doctor Strange. But, that still does not explain the futuristic or cosmic platforms that are in the background. Because they do look like the same ones from Quantumania. It would make sense if they did originally mean to provide connections between Shang-Chi and these other MCU characters because the post-credits scene did apparently go through many stages of development. 

After the film was released, director Destin Daniel Cretton stated that the scene went “through so many tweaks and updates.” At the time, this was Marvel in a Covid-19 world, as their slate was shifting to accommodate the pandemic. Therefore, it would have been harder to nail down which of Phase Four’s titles to reference or link to. The inclusion of Captain Marvel might link the scene to The Marvels as well, but we can be sure that it wasn’t connected to any other Phase Four project.

With a Shang Chi sequel, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty, and Blade all in development, it could be connected to a few different properties. So, if the cosmic concept art is a reference to Kang, we most likely won’t find out until at least 2025.