China box office: ‘Lighting Up the Stars’ wins over weekend, ‘Thor 4’ suspected of LGBTQ censorship

local theater Starlight It easily earned its third consecutive weekend at the Chinese box office, selling $27.8 million in tickets for a staggering $186.3 million. But the sentimental Chinese film about the surprising bond between a funeral director and an orphaned girl didn’t have much market competition, especially since Marvel’s Norse god Thor wasn’t in the works.

China’s Film Regulator Didn’t Allow Taika Waititi Thor: love and thunder There is no release date yet and it looks like it will never be released. Sources at China’s two major cinema chains say the hollywood reporter what are they waiting for Torah 4 The same fate awaits Pixar one light year: Denial of censorship approval due to fleeting moments in the film with LGBTQ characters.

Beijing’s censors never publicly explain or comment on their decisions, but industry participants inside and outside China are closely watching these moves and checking in with authorities to see where the lines are drawn. Inside one light yearA same-sex kiss involving Hawthorne’s character (voiced by Uzo Aduba) and his partner is believed to have stymied any chance of a release in China, where LGBTQ stories are largely banned from screens big and small (the film was also banned). in the Middle East, Malaysia and Indonesia).

Torah 4 Likewise, he is believed to have been caught up in China’s censorship process for several brief LGBTQ moments, including speculation that Valkyrie’s character (played by Tessa Thompson) is bisexual and Korg’s character is gay (the bromance). fiery Thor with a hammer and ax might be borderline.).

Thor: Ragnarok It made $112 million in China in 2017, so missing out on the Middle Kingdom market will no doubt hurt. love and thunderTotal sales worldwide. More important for Disney, however, is the fact that Thor is far from the only Marvel hero to face the wrath of Chinese censorship. After nearly a decade as China’s undisputed favorite Hollywood film franchise, Marvel has seen its last seven Hollywood films not released in the country. Industry watchers have offered different reasons why each film has run afoul of regulators, but the longer the trend continues, the more it looks like a deliberate attempt to diminish Marvel’s national popularity.

Open the window it was the first title in the Marvel series not to be released in China; Some speculated that China moved the film after Disney released it directly to Disney+ due to the pandemic, while others said the grim portrayal of communism through the Red Guardian character worried regulators.

Oscar-winning Chinese director Chloe Zhao Eternal was the next to be blocked, in this case by statements made years ago in an interview with a filmmaker who has been interpreted as a critic of China. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings At the time, a similar fate was thought to befall in an earlier interview given by star Simu Liu, in which he spoke of China as a “Third World” country. Spider-Man: No Way Home Presumably the Statue of Liberty is more than Beijing’s censors approve Venom: Let there be carnage The ax was withdrawn due to Tom Hardy’s earlier comments being racially insensitive towards the Chinese.

before Torah 4, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness He was the last to face outrage, reportedly over the inclusion of the gay character America Chavez and an extremely short sequence aired by a pro-Taiwan newspaper at a newsstand in the city.

Hollywood studios sometimes remove queer characters from their films to appease Chinese censors, earning millions more at the box office in the process. 20th Century Fox removed all references to Freddie Mercury’s homosexuality prior to the Disney acquisition. Bohemian Rhapsody To secure a release in China, Warner Bros. abandoned dialogue about gay relationships. Fantastic Beasts: Dumbledore’s Mysteries earlier this year.

However, Disney recently took the position that it will not remove gay content to appease censors in the territories where it distributes its movies in theaters. The studio refused to remove the “gay moment” from the live action. The Boss and the Monster In 2017 when Malaysia’s content regulators refused and he stood his ground one light year In several markets where the film was blocked.

Adding insult to injury Thor 4′In this case, China’s cinematic revenue potential has finally started to increase in recent weeks after a long period of COVID lockdowns in major cities. A crime thriller from Emperor Motion Pictures detectives against detectives ranked second Starlight With a healthy debut of $23.1 million last weekend. Universal jurassic world domain Meanwhile, it dropped to third place and added $6.3 million to China’s $144.3 million total.