The Shang-Chi movie Legend of the Ten Rings launched this weekend and broke some box-office records in the US

It’s widely reported (eg Entertainment Week) the new Marvel movie Shang-Chi Legend of the Ten Rings has had a good first weekend, exceeding expectations. While we’ve no official Disney statement (yet), the scale of the numbers is clear.

At the time of reporting, the film had taken $71.4 million and was projecting $83.5 million for the weekend (it’s the Labor Day holiday weekend in the US, hence the particular interest). It’s worth noting this is a cinema only release, and the numbers are good, though note Black Widow made more but these figures break a record held by Halloween.

Overall, the film took more than $56 million worldwide (ie non-US) so the combined figure for the weekend is looking to be around $140million. While in a ‘normal’ year a Marvel release would be expected to top $100million just in the US, this is still seen as strong evidence of a recovery of interest in cinema.

Our view is this is good news, but we still have few data points at hand, and nowhere near enough to predict the long-term impact of the pandemic on cinema audiences. We will be looking even closer at the James Bond figures when they arrive later this month.