'Shang-Chi' writers on Shang-Chi and Katy's platonic relationship, Lil-Nas X surviving the snap
'Shang-Chi' co-writers Dave Callaham and Destin Daniel Cretton, talk to Yahoo Entertainment about Shang-Chi and Katy's platonic relationship. They also discuss Lil-Nas X surviving the snap.
Video Transcript
- I trained you. So the most dangerous people in the world can kill you.
KEVIN POLOWY: Shang-Chi has been ruling the box office in a very difficult time to make any sort of noise at the box office. The reviews have been excellent. Its cultural significance cannot be understated as the first major Asian led superhero movie. It just feels like a major success story all around. For each of you, what would have been your favorite reactions to it thus far?
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: I have one favorite reaction that I saw of this. It was like a 22-year-old young man who posted a picture of him and his dad going to watch the movie, and he just said thank you for healing my relationship with my father. I don't know what if the specifics to that backstory are, but it's nice, because it is a family movie about a family coming together, and it's nice to see families going together to watch the movie.
DAVE CALLAHAM: I got a DM from a cousin of mine. She sent me a very gushing DM saying how how proud she was to know a person involved in the movie and that it's the first time she felt proud to be Asian when she watched the movie, which like, really messed me up. In a good way.
KEVIN POLOWY: Always one of my, my favorite questions to ask, you know, on the writing side, especially these scripts, you know, especially for powerhouse like Marvel. They go through so many iterations. How specifically did this one sort of change, most dramatically from the early versions of the script to what we saw-- ultimately saw on the screen.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: It's always changing.
DAVE CALLAHAM: Yeah. It changes so consistently that it gets really hard to say whatever didn't change, I would say.
KEVIN POLOWY: I mean, were there any specific plot points or characters you can mention that you guys did try to make work that ultimately, you know, you had to lose?
DAVE CALLAHAM: The first draft had Leiko Wu in it, which I only just remembered fairly recently because I saw an article about all the stuff that's still on the table, if there's another movie. And I was like, Oh, right, we did do that at one point.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: There was a moment when Shang-Chi had a brother that was left behind with dad or rather than a sister that was early on. And that, you know, inspirations from the comics for that character. And I think the brother like turned into like a monster at one point. I don't know.
DAVE CALLAHAM: Is that right? We were we were doing some pretty weird stuff at the beginning before Jonathan kind of pulled us back and say.
KEVIN POLOWY: Let's talk about your lead, Simu Liu is so good in this movie. It's absolutely a star making role. Destin, was there a moment along the way there in sort of pre-production or early into filming where it became crystal clear that you guys had just hit on this casting that, you know, this guy was the perfect choice?
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: I honestly felt feel like we hit the moment that he stepped out on stage at Comic-Con, and I saw him open by speaking in Mandarin, and then, just instantly switching to English. Um, and I could feel the powerful reaction from the the audience of just that, that culture shock of seeing an Asian man speaking in Mandarin, thinking, and just projecting all the, you know, that you think you know that person, and then hearing that hearing him switch instantly to a perfect American accent. That's what we wanted you to do. We wanted to have him be able to be a character that is believably has one foot in American culture and another foot in his culture back home and seamless, really one of the few actors on the planet who can do that the way that he does.
- My name is not technically Sean.
- What is it?
- It's Shang-Chi.
- Shanti?
- No, Shang-Chi.
- Shang-Chi.
KEVIN POLOWY: It's always surprising and impressive frankly when a couple pitted so closely like Shang-Chi and Katie don't wind up together romantically. How much was that a debate for you guys? Was it, was it a debate in the writing process?
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: Early on when I did my initial pitch, Sam and Frodo was the relationship that I had, like, in my pitch that Shang-Chi needed the Asian-American sidekick. You know, when we started talking together with Dave about that relationship, we started talking about how, how many girlfriends we have, like legitimate friends, that's something that we both is very normal to us to have friends who are-- and they're not surface friends. They're real intimate friendship relationships that, that are not romantic.
KEVIN POLOWY: I, I mean, I've also seen people arguing for Katie and Shang-Chi to get together at some point, you know.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: I would not be opposed to that.
KEVIN POLOWY: How did you guys decide on their karaoke songs? Was that your calls?
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: Were those in the script?
DAVE CALLAHAM: No.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: I don't know if, you know, I was just like, and then they sing karaoke. I mean, you know, it's a combination of like, I gave a big dream list to see what we could get cleared, what was it going to cost a fortune. And we just went into the karaoke room shot for about 30 minutes and just cycled through every song and just let them go while we are just roaming, and they just played getting drunker and drunker and drunker until they're passed out on the couch. It was a pretty, it was a pretty fun scene to shoot.
DAVE CALLAHAM: Were you aware of the long term ramifications that you've created by putting Old Town road in this movie?
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: [LUAGHS]
KEVIN POLOWY: That was my next question, thank you, Dave.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: Yeah, I've heard this theory. Can you explain it to me. Because I don't sure.
DAVE CALLAHAM: Old Town Road as a song I believe was release 2019, and because 2019 exists inside of the time frame in the MCU, between the snap and the blip, that means for that song to have been written Lil Nas X had to have survived the snap. And so, in MCU Canon now, Lil Nas X survived the snap, which he is thrilled about according to his Twitter. Did I get that right theme?
KEVIN POLOWY: Yes, yes, exactly.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: That is so cool.
[LAUGHS]
KEVIN POLOWY: Yeah. That's so Destin, I guess we're Dave and I are both looking for confirmation here that Lil Nas X and Marvel Canon did did survive the blip.
DAVE CALLAHAM: [LAUGHS]
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: Most definitely did. That was,uh, was something that we planned from the very beginning.
DAVE CALLAHAM: Yeah.
- What the heck.
- Is that a frog?
- Oh,
- Oh.
- Oh, what is that?
- What is what?
- That.
- That. That. That.
- What is that?
- You can see Maurice.
- Maurice. Oh, oh, ooh-ooh, Maurice.
KEVIN POLOWY: Let's talk about sir Ben Kingsley whose return to is Trevor a.k.a. The fake Mandarin. I mean, that was a character obviously that was pretty controversial at the time of Iron Man 3's release because of Sir Ben's ethnicity. How did that character make his way into Shang-Chi originally? A, And did you get a sense around Marvel that there was, you know, an opportunity to right a wrong here?
DAVE CALLAHAM: We knew pretty early on that we'd like to make that attempt to get Trevor into the movie. I remember that being a pretty early idea, because we love the character, but also because, when you looked at what we knew we had to accomplish in terms of we knew we were dealing with a character that in some way reflects the manner and mythology. It made sense narratively. I wouldn't say that we were-- we always knew from day one that the whole purpose of him was to right a wrong.
I think that came as we explored the idea and after Destin had his somewhat famous call with Sir Ben. And we knew we could actually get him, but we always hoped for it, certainly.
KEVIN POLOWY: How was it decided who would be in the end credits scene? Does that, I mean, do you guys have any, any poll when it comes to that, or does that come straight down from the top?
- DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: would think that like more things came straight down from the top but that never was, like, we were like begging sometimes, to like, just tell us, like what, but it took a lot of us throwing out, throwing our options, like, how about this, how about this, how about this.
KEVIN POLOWY: Last time we saw Bruce Banner he was smart Hulk in Endgame. What drove the decision to reverse back to Bruce. Can you say anything about that.
DESTIN DANEIEL CRETTON: All will be disclosed very soon.
KEVIN POLOWY: OK. That's a spoiler. Got it.
[LAUGHS]
- It's time to show them who I really am.
[EERIE MUSIC]
