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Driven by the pursuit of profit, Hollywood has a long history of capitulation to Chinese censors. Have producers finally found their backbone?
Since released on the Memorial Day weekend, Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun: Maverick” has soared at the box office like an F-18 fighter jet. The movie reportedly earned $300 million in North America and more than $550 million globally so far, despite not being released in Russia or China. The film’s financial success shows Hollywood can succeed without kowtowing to authoritarian regimes.
“Top Gun: Maverick” ran into controversies early in its production. Tencent Holding, a Chinese tech giant, signed on to be one of the film’s financial backers. The 1986 “Top Gun” film was immensely popular in China in the early 1990s. Executives at Paramount reportedly had hoped that with Tencent’s money and involvement in marketing, the sequel would make at least $80 million at the box office in China, the world’s largest movie market.
Driven by the pursuit of profit, Hollywood has a long history of capitulation to Chinese censors . For instance, Marvel Studios changed a character from a Tibetan to a Celtic one in “Dr. Strange” (2016) to win over Chinese censors. Disney reportedly shared the script of the live production of “Mulan” (2020) with Chinese authorities “to avoid controversy and guarantee a China release.”
After Paramount released an early trailer of “Top Gun: Maverick” in summer 2019, people quickly pointed out that the image of Japanese and Taiwanese flags that decorated Maverick’s iconic bomber jacket in the 1986 film was replaced with undefined symbols with similar colors in the sequel.
Many saw the change as another example of Hollywood’s appeasement of Chinese censors because China regards Japan as a strategic rival. On Taiwan, Beijing has long insisted that the self-governed island is a province of China and has stepped […]
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