Top Five Hollywood Movies Infiltrated By China

Hollywood may have met its box office match in China. It is estimated that by the end of 2017, China may become the world’s biggest movie box office, even bigger than the United States.

Moviegoers in China paid an estimated $8.3 billion last year, which is about $2.5 billion away from catching up to the United States and Canada.

In fact, many movies today are being made with the Chinese market in mind. If a movie wants to have a piece of that $8.3 billion market, it’ll have to play by China’s rules—or more accurately—the Chinese Communist Party’s rules.

China only allows 34 foreign (i.e. films made outside of China) films into the market per year. This isn’t because they are trying to protect China’s own film industry, it’s more about censoring ideas that the Communist Party says “may disrupt social harmony.”

So if Hollywood wants to get into what is becoming the world’s biggest movie market, they must either censor themselves or get censored by the SAPPRFT (State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People’s Republic of China).  

But unfortunately, this is more about making sure that the Chinese people don’t see any movies that don’t “practice core socialist values.”

This is also part of a concerted effort by the CCP to control what comes out of Hollywood—and the way Americans and the rest of the world think about China.

When Angelina Jolie was promoting Maleficent in Shanghai, she got a question from a reporter about her favorite Chinese director. She named Life of Pi and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon director Ang Lee and then said: “I don’t know if you would consider Ang Lee Chinese though, he’s Taiwanese.”

This statement made the CCP angry because she implied that Taiwan was a separate entity from China (even though it has its own government, currency and Olympic team). Users on the Chinese version of Facebook, Weibo, called her a “deranged Taiwan independence supporter.”

Disney was worried that this would hurt the film’s chances in China and they made Jolie apologize to the Chinese for “hurting their feelings.” Maleficent soon went on to make nearly $50 million from Chinese audiences alone.  

But it’s not just celebrities who need to be careful now. Everyone needs to be careful too because there is a pretty good chance that the next blockbuster you watch will have been changed to appease the CCP. Here are five Hollywood movies that have already done so.

5. The Great Wall (2017)

In the film set 1,000 years in the past, Matt Damon’s character saves China from monsters. But there is more to the story than the average white savior narrative. The film is produced by legendary entertainment honchos: the studio that brought you Godzilla, Jurassic World and Warcraft amongst other big blockbusters.

It’s an American company, but it was bought last year by the Dalian Wanda group. The same Chinese company that also owns the biggest theater chain in the world, Wanda Cinemas, which has most of its locations in Asia. The Great Wall may have given the Chinese government the soft power movie they crave, but look on the bright side, at least they gave Matt Damon back.

4. Iron Man 3 (2013)

When the main villain of your film is based off of an offensive Chinese stereotype, you could understand why the CCP would want that changed. But Iron Man 3 takes it a step further. In the Chinese version, they added a four minute scene featuring famous Chinese actors Fan BingBing and Wang Xueqi as the doctors that save Tony Stark’s life.

Not to mention the frequent product placement of Chinese only products like Yili Milk. The Chinese have milk products in pouches similar to juice boxes.

Disney also partnered with Beijing-based studio DMG Entertainment over the production of the film, which not only helped Iron Man 3 break past the 34 foreign film limit, it also meant that Disney got a bigger share of the profits. Forty percent instead of the usual 25 percent. That’s because the Chinese government normally gives film studios only 25 percent of the box office revenue made in China. Actor Robert Downey Jr. also said on a press tour in Beijing to reporters: “I’m interested in all things Chinese, and I live a very Chinese life in America.”

By which I can only assume he means working for $5 dollars a day, dealing with corrupt local officials and staying away from political issues to avoid having his organs harvested.  

3. Independence Day: Resurgence (2016)

Question: how do you make the sequel to the highest grossing film of 1996 a hit in a country it was never shown in?

Step 1: Get rid of the whole America saves the world thing. Instead, why not have America team up with China to save the world together as part of the Earth Space Defense to defeat the Aliens?

Step 2: Throw in famous Hong Kong pop star Angelababy.

Step 3: Don’t forget to promote Moon Milk, a competitor to the Yili Milk from Iron Man 3.

In fact, Independence Day: Resurgence had so much Chinese product placement that Chinese state run media The Global Times made fun of it for that. On the plus side, this level of teamwork got the movie a same day release date in China as the U.S., which is pretty rare because there is usually a long censorship process involved. Fortunately, they just made censorship part of the script writing.  

2. World War Z (2013)

The great thing about this movie is that even if you read the book, it will still seem fresh. That is because it’s an entirely different story.

Spoilers for the book: The zombie virus that sweeps the world begins in China because it is spread through the Chinese military black market organ trade.

Now spoilers for the film: There is none because none of that happens. In fact, nothing in the book happens in the film because the book was banned in China. It was all changed in the hopes of getting a Chinese release, which they didn’t even get.

Plus, the Chinese regime has had problems with Brad Pitt (going so far as to ban him from China) ever since he was in the film Seven Years in Tibet, which is about The Dalai Lama and the persecution the Tibetan Buddhists faced under the Communist party.

1. Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

It’s not just the toys that are made in China. Transformers: Age of Extinction was a co-production between Paramount Pictures, Chinese company Jiaflix Enterprises and state run newscaster and Communist Party mouthpiece China Central Television.

That means that the Chinese Communist Party was directly involved in the making of the film. And, if you look closely, you might be able to make out their fingerprints on it.

For instance, the villain of the film is the American government, specifically the CIA. One U.S. authority puts a gun to the hero’s (Mark Wahlberg) daughter’s head to get him to reveal information on the whereabouts of Optimus Prime.

As an op-ed writer from popular entertainment magazine Variety wrote: “My first reaction to Age of Extinction was that it was an astonishingly unpatriotic film. But I was wrong….It’s just Chinese patriotism on the screen, not American.”

And what did Paramount Pictures and filmmakers get for teaming up with the Chinese government to essentially make anti-American propaganda? More than $300 million dollars surpassing China’s previous top grossing movie Avatar. Paramount must have really enjoyed the experience working with the Chinese regime, because the Dalian Wanda Group wants to buy a 50 percent stake of Paramount Pictures.