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Last week, even those of us who don’t care about the latest Hollyweird movies heard John Cena groveling in before his Beijing overlords, repenting for his sin of wrongthink about Taiwan.
John Cena had committed the grave sin of publicly stating the true statement that ‘Taiwan is the first country that can watch F9’. Unfortunately for him, China doesn’t like the public talking about the fact that the Communist Revolutionaries in China failed to topple Taiwan.
Even Jake Tapper can see the problem with this story.
The Cena apology for (accurately) referring to Taiwan as a country, presumably done so as to not hurt the release of Universal's "Fast & Furious 9" in China, is just the latest example of US corporations acceding to the CCP's will. More coming up on @TheLeadCNN https://t.co/WLNt9Szs9P
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 26, 2021
So, John Cena — likely with a gun to his head from his own studio — wound up groveling like Xi’s little b*tch on social media, afraid even to mention the forbidden word, ‘Taiwan’ in his over-wrought apology to repair the political damage to the studio’s all-important relationship with the totalitarian CCP.
Did it pay off at the box office?
Chinese filmgoers have hit the brakes on Justin Lin’s F9. The Universal tentpole downshifted 85 percent in its second weekend, earning just $20.8 million compared to its $136 million roaring opening weekend.
After two laps, the Vin Diesel/John Cena action flick has totaled $185.3 million. That’s slightly ahead of where franchise spinoff Hobbs & Shaw was sitting at a similar point in its China run, but far weaker than the preceding franchise mainstays Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious, which topped out at $390.9 million in 2015 and $392.8 million in 2017, respectively. Chinese ticketing app Maoyan currently projects F9 to finish at $211.9 million — certainly not a number to scoff at but far inferior to the franchise’s recent heights, especially since China’s theatrical market is back to full earning capacity (See the $825 million earned by local comedy hit Hi, Mom in February). — HollywoodReporter
It doesn’t seem to have done much good at the box office.
But it wasn’t the public they were trying to appease. It was the tyrant class in Beijing.
Now that Hollywood is so open about who it is they really want to please, will that impact your future movie habits, if you still go?
Being a tough guy is more about how much you can lift at a gym. It’s about having the integrity and strength of will to say ‘no’ even when it costs you something.
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