Deadpool Has Been Banned In China

China has become an important overseas market for big budget American films of all kinds, including superhero movies. But the next one coming out, Deadpool, won’t be earning any money in China, and honestly, maybe we should have seen this coming.

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The Hollywood Reporter chimed in late Sunday night with news that Deadpool had been denied release in China, with sources telling the publication that it was due to “violence, nudity and graphic language.” Furthermore, though American studios can sometimes create special cuts by working with the Chinese government, that apparently wasn’t possible in this case.

That last part comes as little surprise considering the way all of the things the censors in China dislike are crucial parts of the character — with the possible exception of the language, as Deadpool comics from Marvel manage to get by just fine without curse words in them in most cases. The violence is a must even if it’s often played for laughs, and the sexuality is also a given, even if it is often mostly implied in print.

The decision is still certainly a bummer for 20th Century Fox, which has only the X-Men franchise as a reliable money-maker in the superhero genre given the well-documented problems with Fantastic Four. Deadpool is something of a pioneer when it comes to R-rated movies starring Marvel heroes (unless you want to go all the way back to the first two Blade movies or throw in lesser films like the two Punisher outings), but it should still do fine domestically. Whether it will play equally well overseas remains to be seen, though having China out of the equation certainly doesn’t help.

Next: Deadpool Will be a Short Superhero Movie

One thing we can still count on is that we’ll be seeing Deadpool here in the U.S. soon enough, where it arrives in theaters on February 12.

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