MOVIEGOERS in China won’t be able to catch the Ghostbusters reboot in theaters, which is slated for global release this Friday, as the country’s film censorship board has banned the movie.
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Films that “promote cults or superstition” are prohibited by China’s official censorship guidelines (due to the Communist Party’s traditionally secular principles). The reboot, however, has been reworked as “超能敢死队”, meaning “Super Power Dare Die Team”. “The original Bill Murray-starring 1984 classic, which never screened theatrically in China, was translated as ‘捉鬼敢死队, ‘ five characters literally meaning ‘Ghost Catcher Dare Die Team, ‘” THR notes.
Film industry observers noted that the removal of the word “ghost” from the title was a an attempt by Sony to give an early concession to Chinese cultural taboos in the hope of securing release.
“It’s been confirmed that Ghostbusters won’t be coming to China”, a Chinese executive told the magazine, “because they think it’s not really that attractive to Chinese audiences”.
In an interview with The Daily Beast yesterday, Ghostbusters director Paul Feig made a cryptic statement about “dealing with the studios” with regards to Kate McKinnon’s character, Jillian Holtzmann.
China has been more instrumental as of late in a lot of movie studios box office success.
The decision by the China Film Co., the state-owned movie body that handles the importing and releases of foreign titles into the country, will likely open the floodgates for bootleg copies of “Ghostbusters” in that region of the world.
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Those cultural taboos may cost the film a lucrative release in the Chinese market, the second biggest film market in the world.
