Most of the talk surrounding Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has focused on the returning faces, from Black Widow potentially debuting exclusively on Disney Plus Premier Access to Black Panther II starting production next July. In the middle, meanwhile, there are the limitless possibilities that come attached to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Spider-Man 3, while Thor: Love and Thunder is said to be on a scale comparable to an Avengers movie.
That’s left Chloe Zhao’s Eternals and Destin Daniel Cretton’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings on the sidelines a little bit, especially when the former was initially scheduled to hit the big screen last month before being pushed back an entire year. And as for Shang-Chi, it was one of the first projects to shut down early in March as the Coronavirus pandemic began to take hold, but the pic has now wrapped and is deep in post-production before arriving next July.
Not much is known about the character’s impending debut in the MCU, but a new rumor claims that it might end up being tied to the eventual arrival of the X-Men and more specifically, one of their most iconic villains. Awkwafina reportedly plays the half-sister of Simu Liu’s title hero, and in the pages of Marvel Comics, her Zheng Bao Yu is the daughter of a scientist that’s been experimenting on the Brood.
The insect-like aliens have been regular foes of the X-Men for almost 40 years since making their first appearance, so the film could begin to set up their debut in the franchise. That being said, it would be more than a little jarring to have extraterrestrial villains show up in a movie like Shang-Chi and the Legend of Ten Rings, which is being positioned as a martial arts epic that just happens to take place within the recognizable confines of the MCU.