By Jason Apuzzo. Over at Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells is reporting that the People’s Republic of China is currently refusing distribution for the upcoming Angelina Jolie/Phillip Noyce/Sony actioner, Salt. As Wells puts it, this is:
… [n]ot one of those “scenes must be removed before your film is allowed to play in China” problems, but a “sorry, but no amount of edits will satisfy us” problem. Meaning that Salt is apparently cinema non grata in that country until further notice – no theatrical bookings, no DVDs, no Blurays. Which, of course, means a huge opportunity for Chinese video pirates and a huge potential loss for Sony Pictures.
As I recall, Wells is tight with Salt director Phillip Noyce (Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger), so I’m assuming this story is kosher.
I’m laughing at all this because Sony just did a gigantic co-production with China on Karate Kid – and went so far as to grant the Chinese communists limited editorial control of that film’s content. Presumably Sony agreed to this in order to grease the rails for future Sony products making their way into China … and now the Chinese have predictably stabbed Sony in the back, now that their travelogue-propaganda piece Karate Kid is already out in theaters.
This is why American filmmakers should never give in to the Chinese communist regime, or to any tyrannical regime when they demand editorial control. Tough luck, Sony! You can always film in Tehran, Pyongyang – or maybe just West LA.
Btw, Jolie’s doing an anodyne interview in Vanity Fair right now. She’s still one of the sexiest women in Hollywood, but a decade of weirdness has taken its toll and frankly she’s looking a little hard …
Posted on June 29th, 2010 at 1:09pm.
That is really strange they’ve banned Salt. From the buzz I’ve heard, there’s no anti-Chinese content that anyone has noticed in it. Any word on possible reasons for the ban from the Chinese?
I really have no idea. It’s possible that there is some sort of pot-shot aimed at the Chinese in the film, or perhaps – and this is my guess – Jolie gets sultry in the film, beyond what government officials usually accept there. [They even banned a chaste little kiss from Karate Kid.] We’ll see.
It just goes to show you cannot cooperate with totalitarian regimes, because they will eventually bite you in the ass. Sony should have known better than to cave on “Karate Kid,” because it probably just made the Chinese think that they were weak and could be pushed around. Boo hoo. I’m not crying. This country needs to wake up and realize what is going to happen if we keep doing business with the Communist (and yeah, they are still Communist) Chinese.
Where’s “Red Dawn” when you need it?
As a side note, the current word is that Red Dawn will be released in November.
I thought “Karate Kid” wasn’t so bad, but the film’s actually about kung fu. It makes the advertising a little weird, in retrospect.