Having made some $75 million or so, Avatar is China's highest-grossing movie of all-time and Chinese officials are pulling it from many of the 1628 theaters in which it is playing. Avatar will be replaced by a biopic of Confucious, starring Chow Yun-Fat.
Chinese officials not only felt the sci-fi epic, which is now the second highest-grossing movie of all time, was taking away from homegrown fare. Further, "propaganda officials" say it calls attention to forced eviction, which millions of Chinese citizens have faced. In the movie, aliens are displaced by humans in order to get to a precious element beneath their village; in China, millions have been forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for government projects.
However, an Asian media consultant said the upcoming Chinese New Year is the real reason Avatar is being bumped. Because China only has 4000 theater screens, domestic fare is obviously going to get support during the week-long celebration also known as the spring festival. David Wolf of Wolf Group Asia told the L.A. Times that most foreign films only get about a 10-day run to begin with - of course, given its success, FOX had every reason to think Avatar would be an exception.
While Avatar is being pulled from the 2D screens, it will continue playing on the 900 3-D screens in China, which account for over 60% of the movie's intake, so it isn't really a killing blow. China only allows 20 foreign films to be shown annually, and Avatar was not released until January because 20 foreign films had already been shown in 2009.
© C Harris Lynn, 2010
A rambling melange of pop-culture.
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