No one would bat an eyelid if you were to say that Deadpool is the most anticipated movie of 2016. Not even the memory of his role in X-Men: Origins or the fact it has an R-rating (18 on this side of the pond, which cuts its audience in half, can halt the march of Ryan Reynolds’ manic Merc with a Mouth, coming this February. Or so we thought. According to a report from The Hollywood Reporter, China is denying the movie a release due to its violence, graphic language, and nudity. You just have to look at the numerous trailers to find evidence of the offending material, but surely this can’t be the first movie looking for a Chinese release that has contained one or all three. Well, that’s where things get interesting. China has no rating system you see, and the country’s censorship authorities usually work with Hollywood to create special, cleaned up cuts of R-Rated movies for their audiences consumption. The problem with Deadpool is that the violence, graphic language, and nudity is so engrained within the plot, that to remove any of it would leave the movie with massive holes that leave the audience scratching their heads.
China is a huge market for movies in this day and age, being the world’s second largest theatrical market, and movies with the Marvel logo attached doing especially well. Avengers: Age of Ultron grossed $240 million last Summer, with more off beat fare, which Deadpool certainly is, like Guradians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man grossing $94 and $102 million respectively. Of course, Deadpool falls under Fox purview, but with the Marvel name alone, the movie was expected to find it’s way infant of Chinese eyes regardless. This will definitely hurt Deadpool’s box office, when you consider that Mad Max: Fury Road grossed over $375 million with no Chinese release. On the other side of the coin, Terminator: Genisys has grossed $440 million, with it’s release in China pushing it over the edge and making the idea of a sequel a possibility. So yeah, the movie’s remaining territories will have to work hard to earn the missing bucks from China, but at the very least this turn of events does justify the production team's commitment to an R-Rating.
China is a huge market for movies in this day and age, being the world’s second largest theatrical market, and movies with the Marvel logo attached doing especially well. Avengers: Age of Ultron grossed $240 million last Summer, with more off beat fare, which Deadpool certainly is, like Guradians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man grossing $94 and $102 million respectively. Of course, Deadpool falls under Fox purview, but with the Marvel name alone, the movie was expected to find it’s way infant of Chinese eyes regardless. This will definitely hurt Deadpool’s box office, when you consider that Mad Max: Fury Road grossed over $375 million with no Chinese release. On the other side of the coin, Terminator: Genisys has grossed $440 million, with it’s release in China pushing it over the edge and making the idea of a sequel a possibility. So yeah, the movie’s remaining territories will have to work hard to earn the missing bucks from China, but at the very least this turn of events does justify the production team's commitment to an R-Rating.
