The early reviews for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings have been rolling in since yesterday, and the milestone 25th installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is currently boasting an 89% score on Rotten Tomatoes with close to 100 reviews accounted for.
While that’s hugely encouraging, and the general consensus seems to be that director Destin Daniel Cretton has delivered one of the franchise’s best-ever origin stories, it’ll be interesting to see how it performs at the box office when the theatrical industry continues to be ravaged by the effects of the pandemic.
The good news is that Kevin Feige has teased several Shang-Chi characters will be making their MCU returns faster than you think, and leading man Simu Liu already knows who he wants to team up with. In a new interview, the actor explained why he’s so excited about the prospect of potentially crossing paths with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.
“Well, there’s this wonderful comic run where Shang-Chi teams up with Spider-Man and teaches him martial arts and Kung Fu and develops a style around him. And it’s this really cool run. I think it’s pretty cool. I just think it’d be really incredible to work with, first of all, with an actor like Tom who’s so incredibly talented in his own right. And also, I just want that for the culture. You know? I want to see the two of them fighting.”
Based on the reactions to yesterday’s long-awaited debut of the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer, everybody wants a piece of Holland’s web-slinger, so it’s not as though Liu is in the minority. The 32 year-old has been coming in for high praise due to a star-making turn in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, so all signs point to him becoming an integral part of the MCU moving forward.
Crossovers are typically a big deal for the shared mythology so it definitely can’t be ruled out, but Liu will have to wait for Holland to ink a new contract with Marvel and Sony before his dream can become a reality.