While there is uncertainly concerning upcoming productions of MCU feature films there seems to be a tidbit of news about a casting addition to Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings.
DiscussingFilm reports that comedian Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show, Crazy Rich Asians) has taken an undisclosed role in the Marvel Studios movie. While they say they have confirmation from Ronny’s reps, the story has yet to be backed-up by trades which should be soon.
They fail to mention the size of the part or who Ronny is playing but it sounds like it was possibly the same part that fellow comedian Bobby Lee auditioned for recently as he revealed on his podcast a few weeks ago. Hiring mostly comedians to fill out the cast wouldn’t be a shocking development given that both leads Simu Liu and Awkwafina are comedians as well.
If we had to speculate, there is a good shot that Ronny might be playing a sidekick, a fellow spy or member of Freelance Restorations/Agents of Atlas.
Ronny mentioned Shang-Chi on his Twitter account over the summer.
Hey @MarvelStudios a humble suggestion: please don’t refer to Shang-Chi as “Rising Spirit” (上氣) as is currently written in the comics because 上氣 isn’t what you think it means. It reads as “Upper air” – not a great superhero name. Instead I suggest calling him 神奇 (Shen Qi)
— Ronny Chieng (@ronnychieng) July 10, 2019
The comedian has Australian roots as he started comedy in Melbourne, Australia and attended Melbourne University.
Production on Shang-Chi (working title Steamboat) in Australia is on hiatus and star Simu Liu has been posting stuff on social media during the coronavirus pandemic, which paused all film and television projects in the country. It remains to be seen when filming will pick-up and if they’ll be able to make that new May 7th, 2021 release date.
However, we do know they were a couple of months into production as revealed by set photos teasing the villain Ghost Maker before things were delayed and likely are on a better path than upcoming Marvel films like Doctor Strange 2, Spider-Man 3, and Thor: Love & Thunder that likely won’t be able to complete many aspects of their pre-production during the shutdown.
Destin Daniel Cretton is directing from a script penned by Dave Callaham with iconic actor Tony Leung playing the real version of The Mandarin, potentially the father of Simu’s Shang-Chi and connected to the Empire of Atlas located in San Francisco (leading to the introduction of the Agents of Atlas?).
HN Entertainment previously confirmed that secondary filming had been planning on taking place in San Francisco, California before the pandemic.
There had been rumblings of actress Michelle Yeoh (previously seen in Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.2) joining the cast which has yet to be supported by either trades or Marvel/Disney.
We’ll certainly be interested to learn who Ronny is exactly playing.
SOURCE: DISCUSSING FILM
