Dave Callaham, the man behind half of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters—or what feels like it, at least—has heard your cries. The screenwriter made Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings your new favorite superhero movie, will make Into the Spider-Verse 2 your next favorite superhero movie, but Callaham says he's never heard a response quite like the one to the project he's working on now: Hercules.

"I've worked at Marvel, I've worked on Wonder Woman 1984, giant titles," Callaham says. "And Hercules is by far the most interaction I've ever seen in terms of the minute the project went out."

But Hercules, which, yes, is the live-action adaptation of the animated Disney classic, is quite a ways away. So you can hold on to your Cardi-B-and-Lizzo-as-muses dreams for now, because Callaham's pen had a role in making Shang-Chi one of the MCU's greatest achievements to date. The film, which follows Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), a trained assassin who tries to escape the rule of his father (Tony Leung), recorded $94.3 million Labor Day weekend haul and was met with holy-shit-level reviews. In addition to, you know, Shang-Chi giving us the blockbuster we've been craving all summer, the film marks the arrival of the MCU's first leading Asian superhero, reigniting the conversation about representation in superhero movies.

Behind the scenes is Callaham, a California native who has become a fixture behind the best action movies of the past few years—and for good reason. Look at all of his credits—Wonder Woman 1984, Mortal Kombat, Godzilla—and you'll find a mix of action, heart, and humor that'll have you craving his next film, which likely won't be too far off. We called up Callaham to ask how he pulled off Shang-Chi—and what we can expect from Hercules and Into the Spider-Verse 2.

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ESQ: How caffeinated do you have to be to write something like the bus scene?

DC: With action sequences, less caffeinated than you would think. Because not every single thing that you see onscreen is a word that I had to write down on the page. What's more applicable to how it works at Marvel, the first draft or two we write, basically, a summary of what's happening in the scene and the majority of the attention is being paid to what's going on for the characters. It’s the story of the fight. There's less of the granular: This punch, that kick, et cetera, et cetera. Of the members of the writing team, I’m the one who's been writing action movies more frequently. I do have a tendency to want to write every punch and every kick. And I usually do that. But then it gets taken out.

ESQ: The thing that struck me throughout the movie was how brilliantly you structured it. I thought the structure of piecing together Shang-Chi’s childhood throughout the movie, instead of just stacking it through the first 45 minutes, makes it work.

DC: Well, I will tell you that we did try to stack it in the first 45 minutes of the movie at one point. As you probably know with these large-scale movies, especially Marvel-type movies, Marvel is always trying to find the best version. They are willing to try a lot of things, even after the movie is shot. We had the footage, we knew what the backstory was, and we definitely knew on the page that it was a lot. Because you're telling the backstory of Wenwu, which is almost its own story. And then he has a family backstory, and then the family backstory goes away. And now it's sort of the backstory of Shang-Chi’s origin. That's essentially three different backstories. We knew it all had to come out to make our movie make sense. But we experimented quite a bit, and that magic, final version was discovered in the edit.

disney's premiere of "shang chi and the legend of the ten rings"   arrivals
Amy Sussman//Getty Images
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton (L) and Dave Callaham (R) at the film’s premiere.

ESQ: You mentioned Wenwu. Something that's been so common in the positive reaction to the movie is people calling him one of the best villains in Marvel's history. But in your interviews, you’ve said he isn’t a villain.

DC: He obviously does some very villainous things over the course of the movie. But to Destin and I, the things that were inspiring him to do those evil things seems so relatable to both of us. I think everybody could wrap their head around the notion that if you lose someone that you love desperately, and you truly believed in your heart that you could get them back, that you might go to extremes. He obviously goes to very science fiction or fantasy extremes, but the core idea behind that character, the core thing that's driving him, I think is really relatable, and tragic, and understandable. And I think that's what really makes him special. Now, of course, that's easy to say. If Tony Leung's not the one doing it, I don't know how it turns out. We had the benefit of one of the greatest actors that has ever lived.

ESQ: I want to talk a little bit about Shang-Chi, because at the end of the movie, you see him complete that coming of age, and he comes into his own as a superhero, a man, and a son. Is there anything you feel like is left to explore with him?

DC: We've all been waiting eagerly to see, hopefully, how this movie would perform. I'm thinking now, it's starting to feel like a sequel could be justified. As far as I know, I can't speak to any plan. On an individual level, on a character level, you're right. He has completed this first arc of accepting who he is. He stops running from his past, but also from himself, which is the relatable part of him. He's accepted the good and the bad of who he is. He's accepted the mother and the father. And he has, literally, taken physical control of the ten physical rings.

What I would say though, is what we haven't seen him do yet is live in the world in this new skin. He's become a new person. Having found yourself, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be confident in every situation. As we all know, life is this constant journey, moments where you feel like you're ten feet tall and bulletproof, and moments where you feel very small. So I would be eager to see how that plays out for Shang-Chi and how different peers might receive him in his world. Because up until now, he's interacted with his father. And then he's had his life in San Francisco. You see at the end of the film being indoctrinated into the wider MCU hero universe, where you're seeing him interact with some of the more established heroes. You might be very confident after having discovered your power and wearing incredible items. But how confident are you in the face of Doctor Strange, or a Hulked-out Bruce Banner?

It's a list. Number one on that list was for Asians, and Asian Americans, and anybody who was in any way represented by the faces on screen, I really hoped that they would feel spoken to and seen.

ESQ: I feel like he'd be pretty confident compared to some of the other heroes that we saw go through that kind of initial indoctrination.

DC: In my life, once I've gone through something really challenging emotionally, that's the stuff that makes me stronger. My guess is that a character like Shang-Chi is unlikely to face a villain—again, I have no understanding of where we're headed with any of this—[that won’t] affect him in the same way that his father's gaze will. So I think he might be very confident in facing down a giant robot, or a monster, or a wizard, because it doesn't have the emotional component to it. I think he has faced down the greatest villain of his life in his father. Not to say we won't try to find something diabolical for him to face in the future.

ESQ: Shang-Chi made so much money over the weekend, but there's been such a beautiful response from Asian-American journalists and fans about how the film has made them feel seen after so long without an Asian superhero on screen. What has the response to the film meant for you to see?

DC: I don't want to say I didn't care if the movie succeeded because I care desperately that the movie succeeded. But ultimately, the most important thing for me, it's a list. Number one on that list was for Asians, and Asian Americans, and anybody who was in any way represented by the faces on screen, I really hoped that they would feel spoken to and seen. Being an Asian American myself and having grown up watching action movies in the '80s and never seeing myself. And in fact, seeing Asians portrayed typically as comedy. I just know what we've been through. And I know what the absence has been in media. And so I just was desperate that we at least get that element of it right. Now, of course, you take it a step beyond that. And the hope, of course, is that other people react in a positive way, and that they accept it, and their eyes are opened, and it reaches a wider audience. Because the truth is, the more eyeballs that get on it, the more people that pay money to see it, the more impact you can make.

ESQ: So Hercules is my favorite Disney movie.

DC: Uh-oh. I hope not to disappoint you.

ESQ: Can you talk about what drew you to the project?

DC: I'm not going to tell you how old I am. But I grew up on The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. Now that I understand Disney history a little bit better, it's a different era than Hercules Mulan. I wasn't as familiar with them to be honest. It just wasn't my core Disney texts. I got a call from the Russo brothers coming out of Infinity War, I think, or Endgame, one of the two. They said, "We're going to do this thing at Disney. We want to do Hercules.” And I had to revisit the movie actually, to even be a hundred percent sure I remember it well. And we just talked a lot about what was fun about it and what was exciting about the title. I think it's pretty easy to extrapolate why those guys might be great producers or directors for a piece of material like that. Because you could probably guess that a Hercules live action movie will have more action in it than Cinderella, perhaps. So they were the right fit and they brought it to me, and I've wanted to work with them. And I watched the movie with my daughter who loved it, which was not nothing. And we talked about how we might update it and we're still doing that.

shang chi
Disney

ESQ: Will you have any curveballs up your sleeve?

DC: I can tell you that it's been an exciting project, and I have been blown away by the amount of discourse around it at this early stage. Even the moment it was announced. I mean, I've worked at Marvel, I've worked on Wonder Woman 1984, giant titles. And Hercules is by far the most interaction I've ever seen in terms of the minute the project went out. Because suddenly, you're seeing fan casting. And I will say that the Muses are very, very, just critical to that story. And they're very well thought of in the culture. So we've gotten a lot of input on the Muses. It's just been fascinating to see it. I don't take it lightly. I want to respect all of that and do right by everybody.

ESQ: Oh, yeah. The Lizzo and Cardi B video. People are freaking out.

DC: That's basically a not very Disneyfied audition tape to be a Muse, isn't it? I mean, it's awesome. It's great. We should be so lucky.

ESQ: Are you wrapped up with Into the Spider-Verse 2 at this point?

DC: No, sir. You would think that I actually finished this. People tend to think that you write the script and then it just goes into animation, and you'd finish earlier than you would in a live action movie. Because in a live action movie, you're writing on set. When in fact what happens is you write forever. You're constantly writing because in animation, they can put together a quick animatic, which is basically like a napkin drawing. And they show it to you and they can tell pretty quickly if it's not working. So you can be asked to keep rewriting stuff, way, way further down the line than a live action movie. And [Spider-Verse directors] Phil Lord and Chris Miller, they love to get it right. We will still be going on that, I'm sure, until right up to the release.

ESQ: Aside from all three of the projects we talked about, is there anything different you'd like to pursue?

DC: I've been very lucky and I've been able to write these really big movies, at a time where really big movies are tending to be the only things that are still coming out in theaters these days. But I do still like to tell smaller stories as well. When I get these great opportunities, I can't say no to them. So I don't know when that will be. But I would love to write a rom-com. I would love to write a pure comedy without action. I'd like to write a movie that goes to a film festival.

ESQ: Dave, you have to bring back the rom-com for us. We need it.

DC: I probably shouldn't say this, but I spent some time last week with Simu. And I was pitching him hard on Notting Hill and on Hugh Grant because he's younger than I am. I'm not sure how familiar he is with that, compared to my absolute adoration for those movies. So, listen, I'll tell anyone who will listen about rom-coms.