Yesterday, HN Entertainment was able to confirm that portion of Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings would be filming Stateside (most likely Los Angeles, California) as a bulk of the filming will mainly take place at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney, Australia.

We can now exclusively reveal that Shang-Chi’s working title during the production will be Steamboat.

I have to assume that the title is a nod to Asian-American wrestler Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat.

Working titles are used to confuse locals to what is actually shooting in their area and the title will likely be used during overseas portions of the filming as well (the U.S. and possibly Thailand/Vietnam).

The most recent working title used for Eternals is Sack Lunch, which we also first reported on.

Shang-Chi will be directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy) from a script by Dave Callaham (Wonder Woman 1984, The Expendables).

There have been previous production reports of the film beginning filming next month, however, (in our opinion) it doesn’t seem to be ready on the prep side of things and we still haven’t had a single new casting announcement since San Diego Comic-Con back in July.

The lack of casting news is strange considering the size of the film and normally we get trade reports/leaked casting shortlists before filming begins on a Marvel Studios installment.

Although, lead actor Simu Liu has been posting images from Sydney on his official Instagram account.

Tony Leung (Infernal Affairs, The Grandmaster) is set to play the villainous Mandarian (the real version), who is assumed to be the surrogate stand-in for Shang-Chi’s evil father Fu Manchu.

Awkwafina (Jumanji: The Next Level, Crazy Rich Asians) is playing the film’s female lead but her character has yet to be officially announced by Marvel.

The terrorist group The Ten Rings will be making a comeback after being first introduced in the original Iron Man and has been teased throughout multiple MCU installments.

Once Shangi-Chi finishes filming at Fox Studios, the next Marvel project to move in there will be Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder said to start shooting next August.

Despite a lot of the Phase 4 movies shooting outside of the United States (Pinewood Studios UK/Fox Studios Australia) we’ve been able to confirm upcoming movies like Black Panther 2 and Ant-Man 3 are set to shoot there primarily.

Thor: Love and Thunder and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness are going to shooting scenes/scheduled reshoots in the United States too (as we reported yesterday).

Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings is set for release on February 12th, 2021.

SOURCE: HN ENTERTAINMENT