The Marvel Cinematic Universe aka The MCU is one of the most profitable and recognizable franchises in the world. While a major hit domestically, the franchise has extended its reach internationally, and these films have become known the world over. One of the biggest markets for the MCU is China, which makes a great deal of sense as China has in the past few years become one of the largest growing film markets in the world. While franchises like Star Wars and Star Trek have struggled to find an audience in China, Marvel (alongside other series like Fast & Furious and Transformers) has been embraced by Chinese audiences.

However, China is also very strict about what films do and do not play in their country. Films have to be submitted for review and the government can request changes that the studio must abide by if they wish to play in the country. Recently Fantastic Beast: The Secrets of Dumbledore removed all reference to the title character and the main villain Grindlewald's love for each other, changing dialogue for the China release. Top Gun: Maverick received some initial backlash when studios digitally altered a flight suit to remove the flag of Taiwan in order to appeal to Chinese censors, as China's relationship to the country is fraught with controversy. Other times, China can choose to ban a movie for whatever reason they deem so, as was the case with Christopher Robin.

Some studios have attempted a form of self-censorship, getting ahead and making changes before the cameras roll as an attempt to get their films playing in one of the largest film markets in the world; in this sense, Chinese censors affect the very scripts of certain films. For some movies, a Chinese release can mean the difference between being a bomb and a hit. Marvel Studios and the MCU have a long complicated history with releasing films in China, one that was once incredibly beneficial but now may not be relevant and could impact their future.

China Has Been Good For MCU Box Office

The Big Problem with Wasp's Ant-Man 2 Costume That No One Noticed
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The MCU films have historically done well in China, particularly following the release of The Avengers. Phases 2 and 3 of the MCU began to really expand there, with many entries bringing in over $100 million just from China alone. Avengers: Endgame is the highest-grossing foreign film at the Chinese box office, with $629.1 million.

One franchise that has particularly broken out in China is the Ant-Man series, as the first film Ant-Man film generated $105.3 million in China, out-grossing both Guardians of the Galaxy films in the country, and that giant international box office helped Ant-Man and the Wasp get greenlit (which went on to gross $121.203 million and out-grossed Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok in the country). The two characters even got their own ride at Hong Kong Disneyland, Ant-Man and The Wasp: Nano Battle!.

It is clear that of the many Hollywood films that are released in China, it is the MCU ones that audiences have gravitated towards. And due to this, Marvel Studios began experimenting early on with ways to make their movies more appealing to those audiences.

MCU and China: Early Examples

Tilda Swinton Responds to Doctor Strange Casting Controversy
Walt Disney Studios

The first noted example of editing an MCU film for China was Iron Man 2, as the word for "Russia" and "Russian" were left untranslated in the subtitles, and when spoken were muffled. The next Iron Man film, Iron Man 3, very blatantly tried to appeal to the growing Chinese film market. The Chinese version of the film is four minutes longer and features an expanded scene with heart surgeon Dr. Wu (Wang Xeuqi) and his unnamed assistant played by future X-Men: Days of Future Past star Fan Bingbing before operating on Tony Stark at the end of the film. It also featured multiple pieces of product placement for Chinese products. The additions did not go over well with audiences or critics, and since then Marvel has not added additional sequences specifically for the Chinese release.

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However, there still have been some changes throughout some films. These can be minor, like in Captain America: Civil War where Steve Roger's iPhone is swapped out for the Chinese brand Vivo. They can also be major ones, as was the case with 2016's Doctor Strange. That film sees the mystical temple of Kamar-Taj located in Katmandu, the capital of Nepal. Yet in the original comics, the location of Kamar-Taj was located in Tibet, but the screenwriter C. Robert Cargill said the decision was to appease the Chinese censor boards (China controversially claims sovereignty over Tibet, as they do with Taiway). The decision also was one of the contributing factors to race-swapping the Ancient One; the comic featured a Tibetan man, but the movie's Ancient One was a white woman played by Tilda Swinton.

Phased 4 Out of China

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Despite how popular the MCU has been in China, none of the MCU films of Phase 4 have been released in the country, with the last Marvel Studios film getting a release being Spider-Man: Far From Home back in 2019. Black Widow was released stateside in July 2021, which also happened to be during a blackout period in the country where films made outside of China are not screened instead favoring local productions. To make matters worse for Black Widow, this also happened to be during a time period that was extended over months due to the country celebrating the 100th anniversary of China's Communist Party founding.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was blocked from a Chinese release date as the country found the source material racist and did not think substituting Shang-Chi's father from the racial character Fu-Manchu with Wenwu was enough. Eternals was denied release due to director Chloé Zhao's remarks about the Chinese government, which also led to the country banning all references to Zhao's historic win as the first Chinese woman to win Best Director at the Academy Awards for her film Nomadland on various Chinese social media.

Related: MCU: Where Are the LGBTQ+ Characters?

The country was going to allow Spider-Man: No Way Home to screen in the country, but only if Sony would remove the Statue of Liberty from the film's climax, which the studio declined. Meanwhile, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has still failed to get a Chinese release and appears highly unlikely to, as the film features a small scene of a newspaper kiosk with the Chinese characters for The Epoch Times — an international multi-language newspaper and media company that opposes the Chinese Communist Party, which is unlikely to get past China's propaganda department which decides which films do and do not release in the country. No word yet on if Thor: Love and Thunder or Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will get a release date, but if both are denied release that means Chinese audiences will have missed out on seven MCU films in two years.

What Happens For Marvel and China Now

The Illuminati in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

While recent MCU films have failed to secure a Chinese release date, other Disney films like Luca and The Jungle Cruise were able to get release dates in China. Films from other studios like F9 from Universal Pictures or The Batman from Warner Bros. also secured Chinese release dates. Many studios, directors, and producers still want to appease the Chinese censors. Even actors feel compelled to do so, as can be seen with John Cena's bizarre apology to China (in excellent Mandarin, no less) after merely referring to Taiwan as a country during the F9 press tour.

In May 2022, just a week after Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness opened in theaters, Disney CEO Bob Chapek spoke to Wall Street during a post-earnings conference call about the continued difficulties to get Marvel films released in China. Per CBR, Chapek said:

We’ve got a long track record of success and a strong fan base for our brands and franchises in this market. We’ll continue to submit our films for release. And it is worth noting, I think, though, that at the time that we are having some difficulty in getting our films in China, that Doctor Strange did extraordinarily well. So we’re pretty confident that even without China if it were to be that we continue to have difficulties in getting titles in there, that it doesn’t really preclude our success given the relatively lower take rate that we get on the box office in China than we do across the rest of the world.

Does the MCU Need China?

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings cast
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Even without China, the MCU is doing perfectly fine at the box office. Spider-Man: No Way Home still managed to gross $1.89 million worldwide without getting a Chinese release date and currently stands as the sixth highest-grossing film worldwide. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness has grossed over $900 million worldwide, becoming the 11th highest-grossing film in the MCU so far. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, during a time when audiences were still hesitant to return to theaters, still managed to gross $432 million worldwide. Eternals, which underperformed in the domestic market, actually outpaced Shang-Chi and Black Widow in international markets bringing its worldwide total to $402 million.

While Marvel and Disney certainly would like the money the Chinese box office would bring them, it has become more and more apparent they are not reliant on them. That sense of freedom may allow for the studio to push more boundaries on what type of stories they can tell if they know they do not need the country to help make back their large budgets.

However, now the question remains, after missing the past five MCU films, will Chinese audiences rush out for the next film released in the country? Will they feel like they have missed too much of the larger franchise narrative and skip future installments, effectively ending the franchise's long box office history in the country, or will they rush back to theaters as they have been effectively waiting for over three years for a new entry? Only time will tell.