WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, now in theaters.
Though Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings‘ mid-credit scene sets up the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe hero’s future, its alumni cameos were a last-minute reveal to the movie’s co-leads.
In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton broke down how he filmed that scene, which saw Wong (Benedict Wong), analyze the Ten Rings alongside not only Shang-Chi and Katy, but holograms of Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) as well. When asked whether Simu Liu and Awkwafina were filmed together with everyone on-camera, he responded “No, they were shot with Wong. So, Benedict was on set with them. Both Brie and Mark were shot separately.”
Cretton also revealed that Liu and Awkwafina only became aware of who they’d be acting opposite the day it happened. “I remember Simu walking onto set holding the sides, looking at me going…, ” he recalled. “But there’s two things happening that emotionally are so connected in the MCU and on set. There is the ushering in of these characters into a group of established superheroes. But in real life, there is an ushering in of these actors into a community of established actors. And we could not have chosen a more perfect group of actors to do both. Both those characters and the actors, someone like Mark Ruffalo and Brie Larson and Benedict Wong being there to welcome Awkwafina and Simu into the fold, it was a very special moment.”
The mid-credits, which pick up immediately after Shang-Chi‘s final scene, marked the return of Ruffalo in his non-Hulk human form post-Avengers: Endgame and another collaboration between Cretton and Brie Larson, who starred in his previous three films Short Term 12, The Glass Castle and Just Mercy. In the scene, all three try to analyze the Ten Rings for clues about its creation, only to find that it holds no vibranium, doesn’t register in the Sanctum Sanctorum’s magical codex and, if alien, lacks a known origin. They do, however, discover a beacon inside the rings emitting some kind of message, but an emergency from Captain Marvel’s side ends up cutting the meeting short, leaving Wong to inform Shang-Chi about his future going forward.
All the non-Shang-Chi actors are also set to appear in future MCU Phase 4 titles. Wong, who previously battled the Abomination in Xialing’s Macau fight club, will return for the upcoming films Spider-Man: No Way Home and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, while Larson is currently shooting The Marvels. Ruffalo will appear in the Disney+ She-Hulk series alongside Tim Roth’s Abomination and most recently voiced Banner in the Marvel Zombies-inspired episode of What If…?.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is currently playing in theaters.
Source: ET
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