The MCU - Action, Representation and Shang chi

 MCU- Marvel Cinematic Universe

They seen in the 2008 box office that super hero movies were on the rise, but not yet at their peak, this meant that the buy out would not be to expensive but it is a lucrative investment that will shortly pay off in the future due to the rise in superhero movies across the market.

Sony had the chance to buy every marvel characters rights for 25 million, however they only bought spider man for 7 million. a massive mistake by Sony. they claimed "nobody gives a damn about other marvel characters"

Key macro facts:

1. MCU- Marvel cinematic universe 
2. 4 billion- price Disney bought marvel for 
3. 54 billion- how much marvel is worth today 
4. copyright- very protective of their copyrights 
5. cross media convergence 
6. phases- Ozymandias- super hero movie fatigue 
7.  its split into 6 phases 

Avengers endgame was the end of phase 3 of mcu and Shang chi was the start of phase 4 

Shang Chi Trailer

CGI monstrosities 

in depth representations, Chinese culture 

character driven 

action, fighting

Shang chi is a max of typical marvel and not typical aspects 

432 million in the world wide box office, just after covid, very successful under circumstances 

1973 Shang chi comics were inspired by Bruce lee 

The villain was called the mandarin, seen as offensive, the ten rings that give him power were stolen from a crashed alien spaceship 

The negative representation would have went down bad in Asian country's 

Disney need to be very careful with its lucrative markets in China and elsewhere 

They had to make changes to the mandarin 

How did Disney counter the mandarin controversy.

drastic decisions made .they side lined sir ben Kingsley as comic relief who had a huge acting reputation in the MCU.                                                                                                                              Xu Wenwu was the new villain and is acting royalty in Asia. Tony Leung was casted. 

History of Action

2010s- choppy, fast paced edits, not very well choreographed, takes away emphasis on the action

Daredevil- Much slower edits with less cuts, more choreographed. 

the raid- perfect mix of fast and slow scenes 

Shang Chi- Comedic tone, marvel film, DJ Snake on music, took one year to film the bus scene, amongst covid. they filmed in different location including San Francisco and Australia 

Marvel is a genius at using easter eggs, the ten rings of Shang chi appeared in movies over a decade ago.