Brie Larson Celebrates Destin Daniel Cretton Being Named Avengers: The Kang Dynasty Director

Marvel’s Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton will be directing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and one person who is really happy about it is Captain Marvel star Brie Larson! Larson has made several social media posts highlighting Cretton, which you could check out below: 

“2013 us was not prepared for 2022 us! Or I dunno maybe we were. We do look kind cool @destindaniel” Larson posted. 

Brie Larson and Destin Daniel Cretton worked together on the 2013 film Short Term 12, which featured Larson as a staff member of a residential treatment facility. The film was an incubator of up-and-coming talent: in addition to Larson starring and Cretton at the helm, Short Term 12 featured John Gallagher Jr. (The Belko Experiment), Kaitlyn Dever (Booksmart), Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), future Oscar-winner Rami Malek (James Bond: No Time to Die), and LaKeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Sorry to Bother You). While Short Term 12 clearly gave the biggest boost to Larson, it’s just as clear that Cretton’s film was a springboard for so many other (and himself), as well. 

Now, Destin Daniel Cretton is deep into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as it races through Phase 4, Phase 5, and Phase 6 in the next few years. Cretton is currently slated for Shang-Chi 2 (date TBA), a reported Shang-Chi spinoff series focusing on the new Ten Rings organization (date TBA), and Avengers: The Kang Dynasty due in theaters in May of 2025. 

Shang-Chi star Simu Liu is certainly happy to see his director buddy hitting the big time. Liu reacted to the news of Cretton directing Avengers 5 by posting: “Three years ago at SDCC 2019 Destin and I sat backstage at Hall H watching some of the most famous people on Earth take the stage,” Liu wrote on Twitter. “We looked at each other like ‘damn, is this really happening to us right now?’ IT’S F**KING HAPPENING BROTHER!”

There is a lot of (understandable) curiosity about what Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will even be. The leading theory (based on the previous example of Avengers: Infinity War) is that we could once again get an Avengers event-level story told primarily from the villain’s perspective. This time, however, that POV would be radically complicated by the fact that the villain (Kang) isn’t collecting stones but possibly allying with and/or eliminating his own variants and competition in every Marvel timeline, to ensure his supreme reign. 

Given how masterfully Cretton mixed high fantasy, Shakespearean family drama, both grounded hard-hitting and epic action, with a now-iconic noble (yet deranged) villain into Shang-Chi is all the evidence we need that The Kang Dynasty is indeed in safe hands. 

Avengers: The Kang Dynasty will be in theaters on May 2, 2025. Brie Larson will return in The Marvels on February 17, 2023.