“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”
New Marvel Hit Breaks 14 Year Old Box Office Record
The Canadian Simu Liu plays the main character Shang-Chi.
© © Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
The first Marvel film with a mainly Asian cast breaks a box office record – in the middle of the pandemic.
With “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” Marvel heralds the fourth phase of its comic film universe – and apparently with great success. In the USA, the martial arts-heavy spectacle already brought in a whopping 71.4 million US dollars (almost 60.1 million euros) on the first weekend after its cinema release on Friday (September 3), including among others “The Hollywood Reporter” reports. And there are likely to be even more, because today, Monday (September 6), the Americans are celebrating Labor Day and the last day of the extended weekend should also fill the box office.
“Halloween” record falls
The first Marvel film with an Asian main character broke the previous Labor Day record set by “Halloween” in 2007 after just three days. The horror film by director Rob Zombie (56) grossed just 30.6 million US dollars (25.7 million euros) 14 years ago around the American Labor Day – within four days. “Shang-Chi” could break the mark of 83.5 million US dollars (70.3 million euros) after Labor Day, as “The Hollywood Reporter” calculates.
Despite its success, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” is not the film with the best overall opening weekend of 2021. This record is (still) held by Marvel’s in-house competitor “Black Widow” with 80.3 million US dollars. Dollars (67.6 million euros) in three days. “Shang-Chi” could still beat the final box office result of the film with Scarlett Johansson (36), because unlike “Black Widow” Disney has this time agreed to run the film by Destin Daniel Cretton (42) for 45 days in the cinema before joining the Disney + streaming service.
A success in Germany too
In this country too, “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” got off to a good start. The fantasy action attracted around 185,000 viewers to the cinemas in Germany on the first weekend. The martial artist Xu Shang-Chi, played by Simu Liu (32) and who takes on the terrorist organization Ten Rings, thus topped the German cinema charts.