As I mentioned in a previous post about this movie, it was an open question how the it would fare during the Delta Variant surge. Looks like the question has been answered – it would fare very well! According to the Wall Street Journal, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, broke a Labor Box Office Record, grossing an estimated $90 million in the US and Canada for the four day weekend. For the weekend alone, it was estimated to make $75 million, a little under Disney’s release of Black Widow earlier this summer.
I think that Disney’s “experiment” of releasing the movie exclusively to theatres helped these numbers a tremendous amount. Deadline reports that some 18% of the audiences was Asian American, which is double the usual number. There was a big turnout in big Asian American markets like Los Angeles, Vancouver, and San Francisco. An estimated 61% of moviegoers were male. While I think that the Gold Open and patronage by Asian Americans is immensely useful, it is great to see that people of different ethnicities will get people to watch an Asian American film that is wellcrafted and entertaining.
The coming weeks will reveal whether Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings has legs. Gold Open lists another Asian American movie, Blue Bayou, is opening on September 17. After that, Marvel will release another movie, Eternals, directed by Chloe Zhao, on November 5.
