Shang-Chi Director Referenced Surprising Movie in His Marvel Pitch

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings hit theaters earlier this year, and it’s currently the top-grossing movie of 2021 at the domestic box office. After the film’s success, it’s no surprise that director Destin Daniel Cretton will be returning to Marvel for more projects. Not only will he be helming the Shang-Chi sequel, but he’s also signed on to develop a Disney+ series. During a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Cretton spoke about earning his role as director on Shang-Chi and revealed an unexpected movie he used during his pitch. According to the interview, Cretton used scenes from the 1997 Academy Award-winning film, Good Will Hunting. 

While speaking to THR, Cretton explained that he struggled to come up with a pitch that would earn him the job. Eventually, he decided to pitch the type of story he wished he had seen while growing up. “I didn’t think it necessarily was going to be something that Marvel wanted,” Cretton revealed. “It was a very intimate pitch about a relationship between a father and a son and a family learning how to come together again with their pain.”

Cretton also wanted to see Asian American people just hanging out and doing normal things in a movie, so he brought in imagery from Good Will Hunting, because he couldn’t find any film examples of what he was picturing that featured Asian Americans. “It said, ‘Like this! But with Asian people,’” Kevin Feige recalled of Cretton’s presentation.

During the same interview, Feige also teased Cretton’s upcoming Disney+ series. “I can’t wait for people to discover what it really is that we are working on for Disney+ with Destin.”

Not only did Shang-Chi have a record-breaking opening weekend at the box office, but it also earned the highest audience score of any Marvel Cinematic Universe film on Rotten Tomatoes. The movie was met with positive reviews from critics, earning a 91% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes after 320 reviews, and it also earned an impressive 98% audience score after 10,000+ reviews. ComicBook.com gave the movie a 4.5 out of 5, calling it “one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s best origin stories to date.”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is now streaming on Disney+.