Yesterday was a wild one for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The biggest upcoming Marvel movie in years, Avengers: Doomsday, officially went into production in a big way. Rather than simply issuing a press release or putting out a fun teaser video, Marvel Studios ran a live-stream for five and a half hours that slowly drip-fed fans 27 names that make up the (current) official cast of the film, and it included Simu Liu.
I live-blogged the entire Doomsday cast reveal (my job is weird), and of the entire list of names, one that got me the most excited was Simu Liu. We haven’t seen Shang-Chi in live-action since his debut, but the surprise also got some journalists fired up as they called the actor out for dodging their Doomsday questions.
Simu Liu Celebrated His Inclusion In The Avengers: Doomsday Cast, And A Journalist Called Him Out
The official reveal of the Avengers: Doomsday cast had more than a few surprises, including more than a few X-Men. However, one person who was clearly very happy that his name was on the list was Simu Liu. He posted the video of his chair reveal on Instagram to prove it:
A lot of fans responded to Liu’s post with words of congratulations and excitement. However, ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley, who has interviewed Simu Liu on more than one occasion, seems to have felt a little betrayed, as he posted a comment that said…
you lied to my face twice.
The journalist uses some harsh words, but it becomes clear that he and Simu Liu are just having some fun together. Liu could have ignored the post or responded with a sheepish apology. Instead, he complimented the journalist saying…
i loved your suit though 😉
Everybody in this line of work tries to get the big scoops when interviewing actors who are part of major franchises, and most of the time, we fail. The actors have been trained pretty well when it comes to avoiding answers, and Simu Liu is better than most.
Simu Liu Has Been Avoiding Marvel Questions A Lot Recently
Those of us who work in the world of entertainment journalism are used to asking questions of actors that we don’t necessarily expect will get answers. We have to ask, and sometimes we might even get something, but most of the time, actors are well-versed in avoiding straight answers. And yes, sometimes they just straight-up lie.
Simu Liu has been doing a lot of this recently. The above case wasn’t the only time he was asked about the future of Shang-Chi and had to avoid answering. I recently caught the actor on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and the host also dove into the deep end, asking the actor about Shang-Chi. Liu jokingly gave a robotic boilerplate non-answer before straight up saying…
I don’t know anything, no.
This interview was only a couple of weeks ago. It’s barely possible that Simu Liu didn’t know he was going to be part of Avengers: Doomsday until last week. However, what’s far more likely is that he’s known what’s going on for months, and has simply had to keep denying it until the news came out.
The truth is a wonderful thing. We honestly thought that we would have seen more of Shang-Chi sooner. A Shang-Chi sequel was given the green light shortly after the first film’s success. However, the movie has never been added to Marvel Studios’ official schedule. There have been fears the movie had been canceled. However, now, after lots of dodging, we finally know that he’ll return to the MCU.