'Avatar' pulled in China

Theater operators were told to pull 2-D versions of the James Cameron blockbuster in favor of a state-sponsored biography of the Chinese philosopher Confucius. Sounds like an old story about the iron hand of Chinese government, right? Well, yes and no. China continues to limit the number of foreign films (only 20 movies can be imported each year and most are blacked out during popular moviegoing periods). But China has developed a significant film industry in its own right. From the WSJ:

In the past, every major city or province had its own studio--also a relic of state-planning days. That was broken up with consolidation through the past decade, culminating with one studio, Huayi Brothers Media Corp., going public in October. The shift put pressure on studio bosses to make a profit, something they realized they could do after the 2002 film "Hero" became the country's first homegrown blockbuster, grossing $177 million world-wide. "We began to think that we could use China's own stories to develop the industry, and that's worked really well," says Xu Jianhai, president of Beijing Forbidden City Film Co. Chinese audiences typically shun musicals, horror and westerns, which rules out many Hollywood films. But they do like costume dramas, romances, war stories and kung-fu films. Except for a few government-subsidized political films, almost all productions widely shown in China are escapist.

The decision to move in the Confucius biopic - fully state-sanctioned - is supposedly in response to concerns that "Avatar" is getting a little too popular among Chinese audiences.

Photo: AP