After spending the past two years getting excluded from Chinese theaters like most Hollywood films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be returning to cinemas in the major Asian market next month as “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and the new “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” have received release dates from the country’s film board.
The surprise news was announced by Marvel Studios on its Chinese social media sites, with “Wakanda Forever” hitting theaters on Feb. 7 and “Quantumania” getting a release on the same weekend as the U.S. and dozens of other markets on Feb. 17. They will be the first MCU films to get a Chinese release since “Spider-Man: Far From Home” back in summer 2019.
Since theaters reopened following the COVID-19 pandemic, few Hollywood films have been approved for release in China. Among the few exceptions are the “Fast & Furious” film “F9” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which has grossed $220 million in China amidst a grueling COVID outbreak.
Since the Chinese film board does not disclose its reasons for a foreign film’s approval or rejection for release, analysts and film execs have been left to speculate. Among the reasons speculated as potential factors have been the geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, as well as a desire by the Chinese government to put greater emphasis on the country’s local film industry. In 2021, as most Hollywood films were shut out of theaters, the Chinese war film “The Battle at Lake Changjin” became the highest grossing film in Chinese history with nearly $900 million grossed.
In the case of Marvel, some films had more specific off-camera moments that may have led to their rejection. Chloe Zhao, Chinese ex-pat and director of “Eternals,” had her Academy Award victory for her film “Nomadland” censored in Chinese media after a 2013 interview in which she described China as “a place where there are lies everywhere.” Simu Liu, star of “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” was born in China but emigrated to Canada at a very young age and was critical of the Chinese government in interviews and in his memoir “We Were Dreamers.”
But the release of “Wakanda Forever” and “Quantumania” may be a sign of a return to normal relations between Hollywood and China, especially considering that after “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Quantumania” marks the second straight Disney blockbuster to hit China as the same time as the rest of the world. The question now is whether the lack of official release in China has dampened interest in the franchise there, as fans have had to mostly turn to pirate sites to keep up with the events of the MCU following “Avengers: Endgame.”
As for “Wakanda Forever,” the film’s availability in China will provide it with one last boost to its $835 million global box office total. The film will be released after the Lunar New Year season, during which theaters exclusively screen Chinese films and major local blockbusters like “The Wandering Earth 2” see turnout from hundreds of millions of moviegoers.