Marvel films to premier in Chinese cinemas after almost four years of de facto ban.
After four years of de facto ban on Marvel films, China is now ready to welcome new sets of Marvel films with Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) Marvel Studios for release this February for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.”
The Communist (capitalist) country will be premiering Black Panther in theaters on February 7, followed by Ant-Man on February 17, announced by the company on Chinese social media network Weibo.
Chinese officials have never explained why Marvel movies were blocked from screening in the country, but according to Reuters, the new set of Marvel movies will be the first films to be shown to the general public on the big screens since "Spider-Man: Far from Home" in July 2019.
Ever since its ban in the Chinese market, films Black Widow, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eternals, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder were denied release and had cost Disney millions of dollars with the ban apparently beginning when tensions between the US and China reached a high caused by a trade war.
According to The Guardian, foreign films are regulated by the China Film Administration, a part of the Chinese Communist party’s propaganda department, which approves or denies films to be shown to maintain censorship and protect the domestic film industry.
Some of the criteria which hinder films to be shown are themes which include LGBTQ+ characters, US patriotism, and more recently, the hiring of the Eternals director Chloé Zhao, who made comments about her home country amidst the seriousness of the ongoing political tension between US and China.
Meanwhile, just this 2022, it was reported that
“Spider-Man: No Way Home” was denied a release due to the Sony studio’s refusal to remove the Statue of Liberty from scenes which the CFA categorized as being too “patriotic.”
Tags: #Marvel, #China, #Disney