It’s incredible to think that as recently as the week before it hit theaters, many insiders and analysts were predicting that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was going to wind up scoring the lowest opening weekend in Marvel Cinematic Universe history.
Instead, it almost tripled the previous Labor Day record that had been held by Rob Zombie’s Halloween for fourteen years and became the first release of the pandemic era to cross $200 million at the domestic box office, on its way to a global haul of $430 million.
That’s without even mentioning some of the strongest reviews for any MCU origin story, instant membership of the Avengers next time Earth’s Mightiest Heroes are reunited, and a fanbase that stretches the entire breadth of the planet. With that in mind, it’s the least surprising thing in the world to discover that Shang-Chi is one of the top trends on Twitter now that it’s streaming as part of the Disney Plus library.
If there wasn’t some sort of major event based entirely around the platform today, then Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings would have the conversation all to itself. Of course, we’re expecting a cavalcade of seismic reveals regarding the streaming slate, so a lot of viewers may hold off on revisiting the movie until later in the day.