Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

[GeneChing]

Marvel's 'Shang-Chi' Smashes Labor Day Box Office Records With $71.4 Million Debut
September 6, 2021 12:26 PM ET
SHANNON BOND
Twitter

Simu Liu, star of "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," attends the film's Toronto premiere on Sept. 1.
Ryan Emberley/Getty Images for Disney
Hollywood's newest superhero is saving the day on-screen — and off.

The Marvel epic Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings rang up an estimated $71.4 million at U.S. theaters between Friday and Sunday, according to tracking website Box Office Mojo.

Disney, the film's distributor, expects Shang-Chi to sell another $12.1 million in tickets on Monday. But the film has already more than doubled the previous $30.6 million record for the full Labor Day weekend, including Monday, set by the horror flick Halloween in 2007.

Labor Day weekend is usually slow for movie theaters, industry analysts say, with most blockbusters released earlier in the summer — and attention shifting to the new school year and the start of college football season. The pandemic has made it even tougher to sell movie tickets, especially with the rise of the delta variant keeping some viewers home and forcing several movie openings to be delayed.

The weekend haul gives Shang-Chi the second-highest box office opening for any film released during the pandemic, behind another Marvel Cinematic Universe installment, Black Widow, which topped $80 million on its opening weekend in July.

Shang-Chi's theatrical success is "the ultimate confidence-builder" for the industry, Paul Dergarabedian, a senior analyst at Comscore, told the AP.

The film is Marvel's first epic to star an Asian hero. It tells the story of the eponymous kung fu master who's hiding from his warlord father by living undercover as a normal guy named Shaun in San Francisco.

Unlike Black Widow, which was released simultaneously in theaters and on the Disney+ streaming service, Shang-Chi can only be watched on the big screen until October, when it's expected to make its Disney+ debut.

Wonder how it's doing in PRC...

[Jimbo]

Wonder how it's doing in PRC...

I heard that people in the PRC have been saying that Simu Liu is ugly, and is a poor representation of Chinese people. Similar to the way many in the PRC reacted to the cast in The Farewell. Which, if true, is a pathetic mindset on the part of anyone who’s basing the movie on that. I haven’t seen Shang Chi yet, but people need to review it on whether it’s actually a good movie or not, and not on whether you think the star is “handsome” or not. The thing is, I’d really like to see the people who go online and criticize other people’s physical appearances. I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the self-appointed “appearance police” themselves are either average or well below average in looks.

[GeneChing]

I heard that people in the PRC have been saying that Simu Liu is ugly, and is a poor representation of Chinese people.

I saw that too. Mostly those seemed to be netizen articles - fluff features basing their data off subjective observations on PRC social media. I find those sorts of pieces to be bad journalism. Srsly. If people took what people said on the web seriously, they'd be taking vet deworming pills for covid, right?