Cheddar News' Baker Machado and Azia Celestino take a deep dive into the Marvel Cinematic Universe and China's complicated history.

Between Bells

Why China Has Banned Marvel Films

Welcome back to between Bells. Indeed Asia with just about 27 billion in the bank. It's no surprise that the marvel cinematic universe, the highest grossing film franchise ever. And one of the most popular of all time Avengers assemble a massive boon for both theater chains and streamers. The M. C. U. Has reached just about every corner of the world over one of the most important markets for both Disney and marvel has become increasingly strict when it comes to what it makes to get on the big screen. And we're talking all about china. Yeah, well thor Love and Thunder has now made over $700 million worldwide in less than a month baker. Not a single penny of that has come from china and the God of Thunder won't be getting a theatrical release there anytime soon. If ever the chris Hemsworth lead flick has been denied censorship approval reportedly because of fleeting moments in the movie involving L. G. B. T. Q plus characters. Well then if it's color we need, let's bring the rainbow or isn't alone here. In fact, since 2019 Spider man Far from home. No marvel film has seen the silver screen in china at all. Scarlett Johansson led Black Widow coincided with a blackout period in the country shang chi and the legend of the 10 Rings. Never saw its chinese release after the country claimed it had connections to racist characters. Eternal is directed by Chloe Zhao that was blocked after Oscar winning china native had critical things to say about the country and an early seen A Doctor Strange in the multiverse of Madness that showed a newspaper kiosk with the chinese characters for the epoch times. That's an international newspaper and media company that opposes the chinese Communist party now blink and you'll miss it. The newspaper kiosk in question only briefly shows up in the scene, but it was enough of a reason for china to pull the film out of the country completely. Asia wow between policy changes within the communist government and accelerated growth of its own domestic box office. This has led china to be more selective about which films are shown in september of 2021 china announced a ban on quote sissy idols and effeminate men tightening its grip on freedom of expression as president, she attempts to keep the country free of foreign and individualistic influences. While china used to request that a specific scene be removed from a film. Now, the government is simply banning the film all together at the same time, china has become one of the largest film markets in the world. Now, according to website research and markets dot com, The chinese box office is projected to grow at a staggering compound. Annual growth rate of just over 30% through 2026 baker. Yeah. And those developments mean a lot of lost revenue for Disney considering that marvel movies have historically been embraced by chinese audiences Just since 2012. The Avengers China has been the second highest grossing box office for all Marvel movies just behind the United States and Canada ticket sales in the region have typically accounted for anywhere between 10 and 20% of these films total grosses at least when they were allowed to be shown there. The Avengers endgame easily topped the coveted $2 billion Chinese box office. And of course this isn't strictly a marvel issue. Disney Pixar's Lightyear was recently banned for having a same sex kiss and mega blockbuster Top Gun maverick was blocked for portraying the U. S. Military in a positive light, however whether these marvel films land in china or not. One thing will stay consistent if available fans around the world will flock to see it and baker, This is so interesting and why I say whenever any sort of theme of inclusion or representation is included in a movie that you're going to see, whether it's Disney marvel whatever you got to vote with your dollars and actually go see it. So executives continue to maintain this progress because the dollars and cents are talking internationally and sometimes they don't net out absolutely. And think of when we go back to fast and furious franchise, john cena got himself in a lot of trouble because of the comments he made about Taiwan and that just goes to show how much of an important market it is for all of these production houses at least in the chinese area