Shang-Chi Wraps Principal Photography

Shang-Chi has wrapped principal photography in Australia. Filmmaker Destin Cretton shared a celebratory picture on his Instagram profile in the wee hours of Saturday morning, revealing he’s wrapped work on the project. Production first began last fall and was set for completion much sooner, though it was one of the first productions to pause production in the wake of the global coronavirus pandemic. The movie then restarted production this summer as Australian officials began to relax restrictions.

“WE. ARE. WRAPPED!” Cretton said in the Instagram post.

Shang-Chi star Simu Liu then added a follow up of his own, sharing a snapshot of he and Cretton. “We made a baby!” Liu joked. “We can’t wait to introduce him to the world in 9 months…”

As the norm with Marvel movies, it’s but a matter of time before the production reassembles for pickup photography, though it’s unclear when that will happen at this point in time. With the main production taking place in Australia, it stands to reason any pickups, or “reshoots” as they’re commonly called, will take place on a soundstage stateside as quarantining procedures are still in place around much of the world.

Though reshoots used to spell disaster for features, Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has said the studio budgets and plans for them each time in an effort to make a movie as successful as possible. After hosting in-house test screenings with Disney employees, the production will then edit or shoot more scenes to make the most out of the movie.

“Reshoots are key to our films, starting with Iron Man. We always say we’re smart filmmakers at Marvel, but we’re not geniuses and the best way to give notes on a movie is to watch the movie,” Feige said last year. “So we make the movie and go, ‘Oh yeah, no that’s not right. That doesn’t work,” and have a system now that can be quite precise and efficient. [Reshoots last] sometimes one day, sometimes fifteen days, sometimes more to continue to go in and make the move the best it can be.”

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is now set for release on July 9, 2021.

What other characters do you hope to see pop up at some point or another in Shang-Chi? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!