Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings reached $8.8 million during its Thursday night previews.
For comparison, Universal’s F9 reached $7.1 million on its June Thursday before reaching the second-best opening weekend of the pandemic at $70 million. The pandemic’s most successful film by the numbers was Black Widow, which reached $13.2 million on its Thursday. Black Widow went on to garner $80.3 million in its July opening weekend.
Shang-Chi officially opens to 4,300 locations today, going into the notoriously slow Labor Day weekend. The domestic record for Labor Day weekend is $30 million for Halloween in 2007, so Shang-Chi may very well beat that.
Source: Deadline
If Labor Day is notorious for being a bad time for movie release, why did Disney release Shang Chi at this time? If it doesn’t do well, it will be blamed for the bad release timing. If it breaks Labor Day record, it will mean absolutely nothing, being that the lowest grossing Marvel movie ever can easily break Labor Day record, it’s such a lame record.
In the end, Shang Chi will not break even at the box office, thanks to China’s refusal to approve the movie (and Delta, of course). But Disney will likely call it a smashing hit and make a sequel for it. That’s what they are doing to Jungle Cruise, and it did worse than Shang Chi.