Hollywood blockbusters tailored to please censors and access lucrative China market
A number of US blockbusters have been changed to soothe Chinese sensitivities as the mainland becomes a major movie market
In a 2013 script for the movie Pixels, intergalactic aliens blast a hole in one of China's national treasures - the Great Wall.
That scene is gone from the final version of the sci-fi comedy, starring Adam Sandler and released by Sony Pictures Entertainment this week in the United States. The aliens strike iconic sites elsewhere, smashing the Taj Mahal in India, the Washington Monument and parts of Manhattan.
Sony executives spared the Great Wall because they were anxious to get the film approved for release in the mainland, a review of internal Sony Pictures emails shows. It is just one of a series of changes aimed at stripping the movie of content that, Sony managers feared, mainland authorities might have construed as casting their country in a negative light.
Along with the Great Wall scene, out went another in which China was mentioned as a potential culprit behind an attack, as well as a reference to a "Communist-conspiracy brother" hacking a mail server - all to increase the chances of getting access to the second-biggest box office.
"Even though breaking a hole on the Great Wall may not be a problem as long as it is part of a worldwide phenomenon, it is actually unnecessary because it will not benefit the China release at all. I would then, recommend not to do it," Li Chow, chief representative of Sony Pictures in China, wrote in a December 2013 email to senior Sony executives.
Li's message is one of tens of thousands of confidential Sony emails and documents that were hacked and publicly released late last year. The US government blamed North Korea for the breach. In April, WikiLeaks published the trove of emails, memos and presentations from the Sony hack in an online archive.