For those who didn't know, China is now the No.2 film market in the entire world and a huge amount of overseas box-office is made up there.
However, China enforces strict censorship on foreign films and one particular aspect of this is an outright ban on any film that features ghosts. Yeah, really.
In Chinese culture, spirits and ghosts played a huge part and were highly revered and respected. However, with the arrival of Communism in China, secularism was enforced and any depiction of ghosts or spirits was expressly forbidden. It's been that way for many, many years and even with the adoption of Western culture and policies in China, banning films with ghosts still happens.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was banned in China, as was Russell Crowe's Noah and so too will Paul Feig's Ghostbusters. A source in the China Film Company, who handle the majority of foreign films in the Communist country, told THR that the actual reason was due to the fact that neither the 1984 classic or its sequel were ever screened in China in the first place.
"They don't think there's much of a market for it here," said the executive. To put it in context, Disney's Zootopia scored over $230,000,000 in China whilst Captain America: Civil War made $190,000,000. The beleaguered Warcraft movie, meanwhile, was effectively saved by the incredible success at the Chinese box-office.
Ghostbusters' budget is rumoured to be in and around $140,000,000 and current projections suggest that it'll make close to $40,000,000 on its opening weekend.
Via THR
