Stephen Vaughan / DC ComicsThe Batman is bowing out of China.
In a move based more on political considerations than financial ones, Warner Bros. has opted not to release The Dark Knight in the Chinese market.
"Based on a number of prerelease conditions that are being attached to The Dark Knight as well as cultural sensitivities to some elements of the film, we have opted to forgo a theatrical release of the film in China," the studio says in a statement.
Since most batfans on the mainland have likely seen the film on a pirated DVD, the move is unlikely to hurt the film's ticket sales ($996 million so far) but will keep Dark Knight from creeping closer to Titanic's all-time record $1.8 billion.
Studio execs were undoubtedly wary of offending the communist government's touchy Ministry of Culture, which has to approve all films for release in the country.
In particular, The Dark Knight features some pretty intense action sequences set in Hong Kong—the Caped Crusader kidnaps a Chinese executive to circumvent extradition laws and hauls him back for a little Gotham City justice.
There's no word exactly what "prerelease conditions" Chinese censors demanded from the studio. But it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to suggest they wanted Warners to dramatically alter the sequence, which could be deemed an affront to national pride in suggesting that Batman operates above Chinese law.
And that would have been a nonstarter, since the studio and director Christopher Nolan felt the rendition scenes are integral to the film's plot.
Those Chinese censors are more daunting than the Joker and Two-Face combined.