In perhaps the first ever moral triumph by a communist regime, the Chinese government has denied the film ‘Ghostbusters’ the right to be distributed in China’s state run theater monopoly, meaning an already critically panned movie won’t even have access to a very important overseas market.
And the Chinese box office has become an increasingly important piece of the international distribution map for the big six Hollywood studios in recent years.
Speculation as to why ‘Ghostbusters’ has been denied is somewhat circular in reasoning, it’s been thought that China’s exclusively secular regime practices censorship of all things spiritual or occultic, making any and all references to religion or the afterlife taboo for mass consumption.
But sources within China indicate the concern about the film is much more straight forward, basically Red China doesn’t think there will be much of an audience for it…based on the fact the original two that came out in the 1980s were not distributed in China and garnered little attention from Chinese audiences…mostly because they were censored by the state for religious and supernatural elements and themes…
Political ideology aside, China may in the end be protecting its people from a bomb…at least at the box office…
