Spider-Man: Brand New Day Director Is Ready to Address a Major MCU Problem
As Spider-Man: Brand New Day continues to smash box office records, most recently surpassing Iron Man 3’s total gross earnings and seemingly on a path to hit $2 billion, director of the film Destin Daniel Cretton is already looking ahead. Cretton wasn’t new to the MCU in Brand New Day. In fact, his most recent MCU project before this smash-hit movie was the show Wonder Man, which was controversially just cancelled by Disney ahead of the previously announced second season. Before that, Cretton was also the director of perhaps the MCU’s most underrated movie post-Avengers: Endgame, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
Given the massive success of Brand New Day, it can safely be assumed that Cretton will be called upon for MCU projects in the future, be they movies or shows, but there is already one upcoming movie that is confirmed to have Cretton attached as director: the currently untitled Shang-Chi sequel movie, largely just being referred to as Shang-Chi 2 for now. There’s already plenty of excitement for that sequel, not only because Shang-Chi was so good but also because of Cretton’s obvious talent as a director. However, sweetening the deal are new comments from Cretton that suggest he will actually be addressing a significant MCU problem.
Cretton Will Resolve Shang-Chi’s Post-Credits Scenes—Something the MCU Doesn’t Always Do
There are actually a few different credits scenes in Shang-Chi, although one stands out the most. That is, in what is actually a mid-credits scene, Katy and Shang-Chi are having dinner when Wong appears and takes both characters with him, where they encounter none other than Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner. This was, obviously, a fascinating moment, and it opened up so many questions about where this storyline would go, when we would see Shang-Chi next, and how these characters would continue to interact with one another. Another scene—a true post-credits scene—showed Shang-Chi’s younger sister, Xu Xialing, taking over as leader of the Ten Rings.
This scene, too, was a thrilling one, and it left audiences eager to find out what the future of the Ten Rings would look like, especially with this new leader now in charge. Unfortunately, in the five years since the movie hit theaters, neither answer has been addressed or even really nodded towards again. Yes, part of that is the fact that Shang-Chi 2 hasn’t come out, but audiences did just see Banner in Brand New Day, and there was no thread that seemed to connect to this mid-credits scene appearance (at least not yet). Unfortunately, this is also something of a trend with the MCU.
Especially after Endgame, many MCU movies ended with mid-credits or post-credits scenes that ultimately went nowhere. As just one wild example, Harry Styles himself appeared at the end of Eternals as Eros, the brother of Thanos. That jaw-dropping moment has apparently not gone anywhere. While Cretton likely isn’t about to fit the celebrated music artist into another project any time soon, he did recently indicate in an interview with The Wrap that he will be revisiting Shang-Chi’s post-credits scenes, saying, “I do think it’s frustrating when these things are left out in the open, and you never see them…And Shang-Chi is one of those. It’s still hanging out there. I have every intention of answering the question.”
This doesn’t detail exactly how Cretton will answer the question, but even the fact that the director is acknowledging this issue is a great sign. Too often, the MCU seems unconcerned with ideas that the franchise threw out in post-credits scenes, but finally, we’ve gotten confirmation that at least one of those seemingly abandoned storylines is actually going to be revisited.
