Stephen Colbert is pretty concerned about China banning Hollywood film releases in response to the president’s massive tariffs, but mostly for one director in particular: Michael Bay.
On Tuesday, a list of countermeasures reportedly being considered by China’s government was released, including a possible ban on American-produced films. So, in his monologue on Wednesday night, Colbert panicked a bit.
“What?! But China’s the only reason we keep letting Michael Bay make ‘Transformers’ movies!” he joked. “You know ’em, you love ’em: ‘Revenge of the Fallen,’ ‘Rise of the Beasts,’ ‘Age of Extinction,’ ‘Dark of the Moon,’ ‘Sword of the Truck!’”
“Now I made that last one up, but you’d watch it, wouldn’t you, China?” Colbert continued. “What if it was in 3D, you know? So the sword’s coming right out of the truck, wouldn’t that be fun?”
The good news for the box office, at least for now, is that the ban won’t be as bad as initially reported. On Thursday morning, it was revealed that a full ban won’t go into effect, but the country will be “moderately” reducing the number of U.S. films that play in the country.
“The wrong action of the U.S. government to abuse tariffs on China will inevitably further reduce the domestic audience’s favorability towards American films,” the China Film Administration said in a statement. “We will follow the market rules, respect the audience’s choice and moderately reduce the number of American films imported.”
You can watch Stephen Colbert’s monologue in the video above.
