To Appease Our Chinese Overlords, "Red Dawn" Will Now Feature North Korean Villains
3/25/2011 Posted by Admin
Movie News
By our guest blogger, Nick Hanover
The L.A. Times is reporting on a pretty odd incident of business interests getting in the way of storytelling. Apparently, MGM's Red Dawn remake formerly featured Chinese invaders (themselves a replacement for the original film's Russians) until producers decided to digitally erase all signs of the Chinese and replace their flags and insignia with North Korean variations in order to improve the film's potential on the global market. The producers have even altered the dialogue to match the changes.
The reasons for the changes are two fold. The first is an ill-advised belief that making these changes in a film that's already decidedly anti-communist will somehow improve its chances of being screened in China. The second is that by doing this, MGM and its business partners can reduce the risk of China rejecting deals with them because of the film. MGM is especially concerned with the potential global business of the film because it's looking to sell it, as the movie was made by the previous regime at the studio.
Red Dawn has no confirmed release date by this point but it features Chris Hemsworth, whose star will likely be on the rise once audiences have seen him as Thor in the upcoming Marvel Comics film of the same name, as well as the forthcoming Avengers movie where he will reprise the character.
March 28, 2011 at 6:09 PM
Ive heard that the Chinese will still be in this, considering they cant edit out all references to China, China will still be part of the coalition that invades,with the changes north korean soldiers will now get more of the screen time. Russia is also part of the
coalition, and their are scenes with the wolverines shooting it out with Russian spetsnantz troopers, so the coalition is Russia,China and north korea???
Tripp Vinson needs to clarify all this. China still has a role in the film or not???