Shang-Chi Director Promises Answers About Abomination's Future Coming "Very Soon"
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings arrived in theaters this past weekend, weaving new and familiar elements to tell an unprecedented story within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Among the film's cameos from existing MCU characters was Abomination (Tim Roth), who briefly appeared in the fight club sequence alongside Wong (Benedict Wong). This marked the first appearance from the Incredible Hulk villain in over a decade, and with the character already confirmed to appear in the upcoming She-Hulk Disney+ series, fans are curious to see what his status quo has in store. Some have already begun to speculate about where Abomination was taken when he left the fight club through one of Wong's portals — and according to Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton, the answer isn't far away. During Episode 35 of ComicBook.com's Phase Zero podcast, which featured Cretton and franchise star Simu Liu, Cretton teased that the decisions behind Abomination's portrayal in the film were deliberate, and will be revealed "fairly soon."
"Yeah. I can say that you will find out very soon," Cretton teased, before later adding, "But I mean, I can also say that the decisions of everything that people are speculating about were big discussions, and they are there for a reason that I think will be revealed fairly soon, I think."
With She-Hulk expected to debut on Disney+ sometime in early 2022, it's safe to assume that's the "soon" that Cretton is referencing, although it certainly isn't out of the realm of possibility for him to appear in something else before then. As producer Jonathan Schwartz told ComicBook.com during Shang-Chi's press tour, the idea of bringing Abomination back into the fold made "the most story sense", while also providing an opportunity to show him in his "weird glory."
"We love that moment. We sort of knew, [director] Destin [Daniel Cretton] and I, that there had to be a big, kind of showcasing fight between two known characters in there, and it just became this big talk with us in talking about who made sense, and who'd be cool, and who we would think it would be a good fight between," Schwartz explained. "And we ended up with wanting Abomination because it seemed to make the most story sense for where we're going to find him in this universe, and also, just be a cool, awesome fight. And it fell along those lines, like it was a good time to refresh Abomination's look. We haven't seen him for a while, so I think everyone was excited to kind of see him at all in weird glory."
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is now playing in theaters.
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