News broke today that Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man 4 is moving forward without Jon Watts behind the camera, instead it will be Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton at the helm. Having signed a first look deal with the studio back in 2021, it’s clear that Marvel really wants to stay in business with Destin Daniel Cretton. Fans have been worried for some time about the status of Shang-Chi 2 since there’s been no official announcement about its status, and Cretton himself even left the sequel to develop Avengers: The Kang Dynasty (which he also departed). There’s clearly a way to make this right though, and it’s bringing in Simu Liu as Shang-Chi for the upcoming Spider-Man 4.
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Marvel Studios Spider-Man movies always include other MCU characters
Spider-Man: Homecoming featured Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark in a major role, acting as a mentor for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as he really got his footing as a superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spider-Man: Far From Home continued the tradition with Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury appearing as a mentor of sort. Finally, Spider-Man: No Way Home brings in Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange to help Peter with his identity being revealed to the public.
In short, there’s always a heavy hitter from the MCU in Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man movies. Bringing in Simu Liu as Shang-Chi for Spider-Man 4 not only checks the box of having a familiar face appear, anchoring the movie as being a larger part of the MCU as a whole, but it would also give audiences another appearance by Liu as the character.
Since the 2021 release of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Liu has not appeared in any other Marvel Studios releases. There are plans for the character to be featured in the animated Marvel’s What If…? and the animated Marvel Zombies shows, but episodes featuring Liu have not been released yet. The public needs to be at least reminded that this hero is still around and fighting battles in the MCU, so an appearance in Spider-Man 4 would accomplish this AND give the studio a place to set up his next starring role.
Shang-Chi appearing solves a major MCU plot thread
At the end of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom Holland sacrifices his friendships, romance, and more by having Doctor Strange make everyone forget who Peter Parker is, rather than forgetting Spider-Man. We see this in action when Holland’s Peter has a conversation with Happy Hogan, who doesn’t recognize him, with the same thing happening later when he sees Ned and MJ.
We know that Peter reuniting with MJ will almost certainly be a major piece of the film’s entire plot, so having more than one character that knew Peter suddenly having their memory return shouldn’t be an arc that multiple characters experience. By bringing in Shang-Chi as the MCU representative to Spider-Man 4, the sequel can avoid a character that already knew Peter Parker from having to navigate what would no doubt become repetitive thematically.
Spider-Man 4 teased a street level turn for the hero
Spider-Man: No Way Home‘s final scene also seemed to indicate a version of the webslinger that was back to being a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Even though Shang-Chi’s solo movie was a globe-hopping action movie, in the tradition of Marvel Comics he does have roots in being among the street level heroes that have been fighting the good fight on the ground. The world that Shang-Chi occupies in the MCU is also a corner that Spider-Man hasn’t visited, one with extremely wild villains (a Spider-Man staple) and with fantasy creatures that are pretty rare in the MCU on the whole.
In the event that this isn’t what Sony and Marvel want to do with Spider-Man 4, Shang-Chi still makes sense though. The last time we saw Shang-Chi in the Marvel Cinematic Universe he was being recruited by Wong to seemingly be a part of The Avengers, whatever form the team ends up taking after Avengers: Endgame. Considering the upcoming Spider-Man 4 appears to be planning for a release between Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, that bridge is going to need to be crossed, and a new representative for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes should pop in.
There’s still some time between now and cameras rolling on Spider-Man 4, with today’s report revealing that shooting is expected to begin next year. As the clock starts to tick toward the beginning of production we can likely expect some kind of confirmation about which Marvel hero will appear in the movie, but right now our money is on Shang-Chi. It’s the right thing to do Marvel.
