Following Deadline’s news in December, the latest update for Marvel Studios’ Shang-Chi brings word that Daniel Deston Cretton (The Glass Castle) will take the helm for a modernized adaptation of the Marvel property. Currently shepherding upcoming Michael B. Jordan’s Just Mercy, Cretton will be joined by Expendables franchise creator Dave Callaham (The Expendables franchise, upcoming Wonder Woman 1984 and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse 2).
In the comics, Shang-Chi is the son of 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. The deceit makes them bitter enemies.
Callaham’s efforts reportedly aim to accomplish in kind what director Ryan Coogler achieved with Black Panther, that is, in introducing an IP that blends Asian and Asian American themes, from the minds of Asian and Asian-American filmmakers.
Among several incarnations hailing as the brainchild of creators Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin, the Hu’nan province-born hero launched in 1973 in time for the kung fu craze brought on by the popularity of Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon. (Deadline)