WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, now in theaters.
Though Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings confirmed Tony Leung's Wenwu to be Marvel's true version of the Mandarin, it also brought back Sir Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery for a surprisingly extended amount of screen time.
Screenwriter Dave Callaham suggested it was crucial in tying Shang-Chi into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe timeline. As Callaham explained to The Hollywood Reporter, "Sir Ben's character, Trevor Slattery, was really the only connective tissue we had available to us to connect to any previous iteration of the Ten Rings or the Mandarin, because Tony Stark is dead. We knew we wanted to use Sir Ben if it was possible, and that was a question we asked very early."
Initially, Callaham and director Destin Daniel Cretton weren't certain that Kingsley would return, given the backlash to Iron Man 3's Mandarin twist. However, their idea was well-received by Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige who told Callaham that they would "'need to craft the story and then lure him in. And that will be on you guys creatively, to give him something juicy.' I don't know if we did outlines or had an actual script at the point we first approached him. That's the moment I believe some version of Destin having to do a Zoom meeting or something like that happened, and he described what we were thinking, and it turns out Sir Ben very much likes to play Trevor Slattery. It worked out."
In Iron Man 3, Kingsley's character was initially presented to the world as the Mandarin, a terrorist responsible for numerous attacks and recorded warnings to the United States government. However, Tony Stark eventually learned that he was only a washed-up actor hired by Aldrich Killian to pose as a terrorist while he secretly amassed political power using A.I.M.'s Extremist program. Slattery returned in the one-off short All Hail the King, in which he sat for a documentary interview that turned out to be a front for the Ten Rings, who used the interview to take Slattery to the real Mandarin, who was not happy about his impersonator's actions.
Shang-Chi addressed the Iron Man 3 connection during a scene where Wenwu explained to Shang-Chi, Katy and Xialing how the Mandarin title was poorly appropriated from his identity. They later discovered Trevor Slattery as a prisoner in Wenwu's complex, having also befriended a dijiang named Morris. After breaking them both out, Slattery helps Shang-Chi navigate the maze blocking entrance to the city of Ta Lo, using Morris to determine the maze's correct path.
Directed by Destin Cretton, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is currently in theaters.
Source: THR
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