“Top Gun: Maverick” shows Hollywood can survive without China’s film market

The success of Top Gun: Maverick, which sold $1 billion in tickets last weekend, highlights the uneasy relationship between Hollywood and China.

Part of the film's $170 million budget had partial support from a major Chinese investor. The company pulled out due to reports that the Chinese Communist Party would not approve of the film's depiction of the US military.

When the initial trailer for Top Gun: Maverick showed Tom Cruise's character wearing a flight jacket without the flag patches of Japan and Taiwan, it caused political tensions to Flare up.

The omission was noticed by critics as a sign that the film's US producers were bending to the will of the Chinese government, which does not officially recognize Taiwan as a country. In 2021, there were similar concerns when the actor John Cena made an unusual public apology to the people of China for calling Taiwan a country.

Hollywood has a long history of complying with China's censors in order to maintain access to the largest film market in the world.

The Chinese Communist party's censors block major films for a wide range of specific and sometimes unexplained reasons despite Hollywood's attempts to get its films into the market. Spider-Man: No Way Home was banned in China due to what the government thought were images of the US that were too patriotic. Near the end of the film, the Statue of Liberty is shown.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is one of the superhero films that have been banned in China.

The films in question aren't necessarily doomed by the ban. No Way Home was the most successful film of the year, despite the fact that it didn't sell as many tickets in China as it did in other parts of the world. Doctor Strange became the year's most successful film at $950 million, until the debut of Top Gun: Maverick, which sold more tickets than any other film in the year.

The China censorship issue is still not addressed directly by studio executives. Disney's Asia-Pacific president tried to paint a positive picture when pressed on the topic.

It is difficult to predict the actions of a government. Our job is to understand where our brands and franchises connect with consumers. We are able to maximize our reach because of the constraints we have.

Mission: Impossible-Rogue Nation, a film about a heroic US intelligence agent, was allowed to be released in China even though a depiction of the Statue of Liberty was removed.

It's possible that Top Gun: Maverick lost out on at least some of the $136 million it made in China. Hollywood studios are preparing for life without the Chinese market because of the constraints and confines of what is and isn't acceptable.

The final cut of the film did not include the jacket that was shown in the trailer. The Taiwanese and Japanese flags are displayed in the same way in the first few minutes of the movie as they were in the original.