Shang-Chi Director Reveals How Marvel Made Changes to Credits Cameos

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton reveals a mid-credits crossover went through “many iterations” with different characters because of the ever-changing Marvel Cinematic Universe. Spoiler warning for Marvel’s Shang-Chi. When the sorcerer Wong (Benedict Wong) summons Shang-Chi (Simu Liu) and Katy (Awkwafina) to study the ancient rings Wenwu (Tony Leung) wielded as ruler of the Ten Rings organization, it’s with the help of Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). The two Avengers, appearing remotely via hologram as they did in Endgame, are present when the rings emit a beacon sending a signal somewhere out into the universe. 

“You would think that more things came straight down from the top, but that never was [ordered down]. We were begging sometimes to like, ‘Just tell us [who can be in the scene],” Cretton told Yahoo! Entertainment with a laugh. “But it took a lot of us throwing out options, like, ‘How about this, how about this, how about this?’ And I think because the [Marvel Cinematic Universe] is such a living organism…you know, there’s writer’s rooms happening, developing things simultaneously all the time. Everything does need to fit.”

Cretton and screenwriters Dave Callaham and Andrew Lanham “would throw ideas up the chain for that, and sometimes we’d get a maybe,” said Cretton of the scene set post-Endgame. “And that meant, ‘Okay, something else is developing somewhere else, but we’re not totally sure if that character will make sense.’ Sometimes that ‘maybe’ would hang for a bit, and then they’d [Marvel Studios] say, ‘Oh, no, we can’t do that person anymore.’ We did that, I don’t know [how many times].”

Ultimately, Cretton said, “We went through so many iterations who could be in that room. We knew that we wanted characters to be helping us usher Shang-Chi into the bigger universe. But those characters that we landed on made sense to all of the other things that are happening in the MCU at the time that we actually shot it.” 

Asked about Ruffalo appearing as Bruce Banner — and not his green-skinned alter-ego — after a transformation into the amalgam “Smart Hulk” in Endgame, Cretton teased: “All will be disclosed very soon.” 

Ruffalo returns opposite Tatiana Maslany in Marvel Studios original series She-Hulk, out 2022 on Disney+; Larson reprises her role as Carol Danvers when The Marvels opens in theaters on November 11, 2022.

Marvel’s Shang-Chi is streaming November 12 on Disney+ and available to own November 30.