By Kriti Rajbar, Trinity College Student
The Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most popular movie franchises in history. As of August 2021, the series was the highest-grossing film franchise with total worldwide box office revenue of 22.93 billion U.S. dollars. Since the release of Iron Man in 2008, millions of people (myself included) have been hooked onto the stories, faithfully following the franchise through its various ‘phases’. The latest instalment in the franchise is “Shang-chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’. While this movie has connections all through the MCU and is going to be vital in the forthcoming movies, I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t heard much about it, even if you are an avid Marvel fan. But why is that so?
In the weeks leading up to the September 3rd theatrical release date of the movie, I along with Marvel fans all over social media began to wonder about the lack of hype. “Is it just me or does it seem like the marketing for this movie is just not happening?” asked one TikToker, pointing out that while actor Simu Liu is very active on social media, the overall buzz for the film seems pretty quiet.
Until about a week from the release date, the cast and director of the film had only done some random interviews (which is shocking cause, well, it’s a major movie?) Simu Liu (the title superhero) only began doing interviews on major talk shows well after the movie released, which is a bit weird because majority of press is done leading up to release. And while the cast had appeared on August’s cover of Empire magazine, they’re way less visible than the aggressive promotional push for Marvel’s Disney+ shows.
Marvel usually markets its movie through its stars, and Simu Liu is not widely known. But so were Liam Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston before their Marvel appearances. Robert Downey Jr. actually had a bad Hollywood reputation but his role as Iron Man made him a bankable Hollywood star. So, lack of public awareness of Simu Liu can’t be an excuse to not promote both him and the movie.
TikToker @slickla34 also shared his thoughts, saying, “Simu Liu has taken the entire Shang-Chi promotional campaign into his own hands at this point.” “Like it really feels like he’s just doing all the promotional campaign work that Marvel Studios refuses to do for him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Marvel actor this excited to be in a MCU film and someone who is regularly posting about it,” the social media user said in his clip.
As the Daily Dot reported, Director Destin Daniel Cretton has only done one major interview in the past month (Empire), whereas the director and lead writer of Loki are a constant presence in relevant media outlets. Shang-Chi has some big-name stars, like Awkwafina, Michelle Yeoh, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai. They have also been relatively low-profile compared to the Disney+ actors. In my opinion, Marvel hasn’t marketed their star power enough, even though they are well known actors, especially Awkwafina who has appeared in blockbusters like Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians.
Many (especially on Tiktok) feel that the reason for this failure to promote and slow rollout of the movie is due to racism. “The fact that Shang Chi is like the least hyped marvel movie I’ve ever seen feels racially motivated…” said one TikToker, in a video with over 150,000 likes. Shang-Chi is the first movie with an Asian superhero and one of the few movies to have an Asian lead at all. Why isn’t Shang-Chi as visible as the superheroes before him?
One reason could be due to release date. Studios typically spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on marketing a film of this size, with most of that money being spent in the weeks leading up to the release date. But thanks to the pandemic, a lot of blockbuster releases had their release dates pushed back. This meant repeated interruptions to their promotional calendar, and Disney almost certainly went over-budget thanks to Black Widow‘s delays. The studio may want to avoid this happening with Shang-Chi. But they still spent millions on marketing for the many mini-series released.
We may never know Marvel’s reason for not marketing this movie enough, so all we can do is speculate. What do you think?