Hollywood Won't Budge for Chinese Censors Anymore. Here's What Changed
owl writes:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/08/media/hollywood-china-censors-box-office-intl-hnk/index.html
Hollywood has long bent over backwards to give Chinese censors what they want. Not anymore.
Over the past year, producers behind some of the hottest US blockbusters have kept in scenes that could irk China's censors, apparently less concerned about the potential loss of access to theaters across the country of 1.4 billion people.
As a result, some of the most anticipated movies released in recent months - including "Top Gun: Maverick," "Spider-Man: No Way Home" and "Lightyear" - have not, and may never, hit the world's second largest box office.
All films publicly screened in China need a permit from regulators. Censorship is rife, with authorities increasingly clamping down on what they perceive to be inappropriate, including in some cases the appearance of cleavage, tattoos or people smoking, as well as more obviously politically sensitive elements.
[...] So why would these companies push back, putting tens or hundreds of millions of dollars at risk? For one, industry veterans say that China's movie market isn't what it used to be.
[...] "Pleasing Beijing no longer guarantees big revenues in China," he told CNN Business. "Such risk and effort no longer guarantee results, and I expect this lack of certainty to prolong this era of pushback for quite some time."
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.