Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings smashed box office expectations and even set a new labor day box office record, revealing a new box office normal. While the box office isn't what it once was, and may never fully recover, the post-pandemic box office shows big blockbuster movies still have a future on the big screen.
After an abysmal 2020 box office, 2021 has shown some promise for the theatrical box office, with some big hits like even a full box office recovery would still see diminishing returns.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings shows Marvel still packs a punch at the box office but also reveals the ceiling on post-pandemic box office performance. While its $75 million opening weekend is a huge win, even breaking pre-pandemic labor day records, that doesn't mean the box office has actually returned to or exceeded pre-pandemic levels. The next highest-grossing labor day movie was 2007's Jeepers Creepers franchises are the next biggest properties to release on labor day, so a Marvel movie would have broken the holiday weekend's box office record in any pre-pandemic year, too.
What's still not totally clear is what exactly that Ant-Man and the Wasp. Even without the likely steep second-weekend drop (as has been the case for almost every post-pandemic release), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will likely end up a lower-than-average MCU earner at the box office.
Overall, this is still a huge win for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Marvel, Disney, and theaters. Most of the factors impacting Shang-Chi's box office were out of the studio's control, proving blockbuster movies like this are still a viable business. Unfortunately, the future is still uncertain for more divisive movies like Dune, but Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings proves at least Marvel's box office dominance survived the pandemic.
