Ghostbusters could be in great trouble near the Great Wall

July 14th 2016, 8:47am

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Chalk this one up as a win for the haters of the new GHOSTBUSTERS, ladies and gentleman. As much as they don’t want the reboot to exist, the movie is out, and has been met with pretty good reviews and will probably make a good chunk of change this weekend. However, those who want the movie as dead as the film's antagonists may have their scoff-driven prayers answered yet, because when it comes to one MAJOR movie market, the movie may already be a ghost.

Deadline reports that the reboot of the 80s phenomena has yet to set a release date in the second largest movie market (and possibly the first within the next few years) in the world—China. Now, I don’t know much about big numbers or fancy pie graphs, but it seems that not getting your film to show in a country with over a billion people may, possibly, be a negative.

This comes on the heels of reports that the movie was rejected for release by Chinese censors, according to Deadline. As of right now, Sony has yet to secure a slot to show the film in the massive country, with the only American titles there right now being TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 2 and FINDING DORY, with LEGEND OF TARZAN debuting July 19, while ICE AGE: COLLISION COURSE is set to hit in August.

Though those aforementioned haters may be hoping this is all because the Chinese censors saw the movie and said, “Fall Out Boy? Really?” But the reality is actually far more censorship-driven. See, movies that depict anything superstitious or promote the supernatural are normally forbade in the country, despite the fact the rule has been broken for some of their own movies. However, considering this is an American film that has SO MANY ghosts, Sony may be out of luck.

This isn’t the first major American movie denied release in China this year, as the mega blockbuster DEADPOOL was banned from the country. This is bad news for Sony, but Deadline also reports that the studio may be submitting the film to China Film Group this upcoming week, but, like auditioning for American Idol, that won’t necessarily guarantee them a slot (damn you, China’s Simon Cowell!).

As I said before, China is a massive player in the global movie market. In fact, it’s the only market that really stands up to America's, as some of our own huge movies (TRANSFORMERS 4, FURIOUS 7) do better there than they do here. Hell, when it comes to movies like WARCRAFT China is the only way a studio can hope to make a profit. Even their own movies would rank as one of our biggest, as their biggest movie ever (this year’s THE MERMAID) made $526 million at their domestic box office which would place it squarely at number six on our own all-time domestic list. So, basically, your movie not coming out in China is a bit of a f*cking mess. Hopefully the movie will get a screening there, because if it doesn’t, and the film doesn’t fare well here, that would be the end of the movie and any potential sequels. I refuse to give the online haters that satisfaction.

GHOSTBUSTERS comes out today in theaters everywhere, and God knows when in China. Check our video review below!