Chinese censors don’t like Marvel movies. Thor: Love and Thunder could become the seventh consecutive production to be blocked by the country’s regulators
Chinese film regulators have yet to give a release date to Thor: Love and Thunder from Marvel Studios, and it looks like they never will. Sources from two major movie theater chains in China told The Hollywood Reporter who hope that the fourth installment starring the god of thunder, faces the same fate as Lightyear from Pixar that was denied approval due to scenes in the film involving LGBTQ+ characters.
The Beijing censors never publicly explain or comment on their decisions. But industry participants inside and outside of China are carefully scrutinizing such moves and communicating with authorities to determine where the lines are drawn. In the case of Lightyearit was believed that a same-sex kiss between Hawthorne’s character and her partner would negate any chance of a release in China, where LGBTQ+ storytelling is banned from most theaters (the film was also banned in the Middle East). , Malaysia and Indonesia).
Thor 4 will not pass the cut of the Chinese censors
Similarly, it is believed that Thor: Love and thunder it won’t make it through China’s censorship process due to some brief LGBTQ+ moments, including suggestions that Valkyrie’s character (played by Tessa Thompson) is bisexual and Korg’s character is gay.
Thor: Ragnarök earned 112 million dollars in China in 2017, so losing the Asian country’s market will certainly affect the total world sales of love and thunder. More significant for Disney, however, is the fact that Thor is far from the only Marvel hero to face the wrath of Chinese censors. Possibly China’s favorite Hollywood film franchise for nearly a decade, Marvel has seen its last seven productions go unreleased in the country. Industry observers have come up with different reasons why each movie ran afoul of regulators, but the longer the trend continues, the more it seems like a deliberate effort to temper Marvel’s local popularity.
The pandemic has not gone down well with Marvel titles in China
Black Widow it was the first Marvel title not to be released in China; some speculated that China passed on the film after Disney released it directly to Disney+ due to the pandemic, while others said the film’s vague depictions of communism via the Red Guardian character upset regulators.
the eternals, by Oscar-winning Chinese director Chloé Zhao, was the next to miss the cut, in this case due to a statement the filmmaker made years ago in an interview that was interpreted as critical of China. It was thought that Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings would suffer a similar fate due to an earlier interview star Simu Liu gave in which he discussed China as a country of the “Third World”. Spider-Man: No Way Home allegedly featured the Statue of Liberty too much for the taste of Beijing censors, while Venom: There will be slaughter from Sony Pictures was removed due to old Tom Hardy comments that were considered racially insensitive towards the Chinese people.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madnesswas the most recent production to receive the wrath of censors, reportedly due to the inclusion of a gay character as America Chavez and an extremely brief sequence featuring a pro-Taiwan newspaper in a city newsstand.
Marvel no longer retouches their movies to make the cut
Hollywood studios have occasionally removed queer characters from their films to appease China’s censors, reaping higher box office receipts in the process. Prior to its acquisition by Disney, 20th Century Fox removed all mention of Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality from Bohemian Rhapsody to ensure its release in China, and Warner Bros. removed dialogue referring to a gay relationship from Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Secrets at the beginning of this year.
Recently, however, Disney has taken the position that it does not remove gay content in order to appease censors in the territories where it distributes its theatrical films. The studio refused to cut a “gay moment” from the live action movie Beauty and the Beast in 2017 when Malaysian content regulators objected, and he stood his ground with Lightyear in the various markets where the film was blocked.
That Thor: Love and thunder, failing to open in China is quite a blow for Marvel Studios, now that China’s movie earnings potential had finally started to pick up in recent weeks after a long period of COVID shutdowns in major cities. the crime thriller detectives vs. sleuthsranked second behind Lighting Up the Stars over the past weekend with a debut of 23.1 million. In the meantime, Jurassic World Dominion Universal’s dropped to third place, taking in $6.3 million for a total of $144.3 million.