Pentagon to filmmakers: We won’t help you if you kowtow To China

If you're a filmmaker and you want the Pentagon's help, from now on you'll have to guarantee that you won't let China censor your movie first.

On Wednesday, the Defense Department updated its rules for working with movie studios to prohibit any assistance to directors who plan to comply or will likely comply with censorship demands from the Chinese government in order to distribute their movie there.

The issue came to a head with last year’s release of “Top Gun: Maverick.” In trailers for the film, viewers noticed that the studio removed the flags of Taiwan and Japan from Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell’s flight jacket in an apparent attempt to appease Chinese investor Tencent. But after criticism in the U.S. — and after Tencent reportedly dropped its investment in the film –– the flags were restored in the final version.

The Pentagon updated its rules for working with filmmakers after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) inserted language into the fiscal 2023 defense policy bill. Cruz has pushed back on Beijing’s censorship of films.

“What does it say to the world when Maverick is scared of the Chinese communists?” he said in a floor speech at the time.

According to a new Defense Department document obtained by POLITICO, filmmakers who want the U.S. military to help with their projects must now pledge that they won’t let Beijing alter those films.

The DOD “will not provide production assistance when there is demonstrable evidence that the production has complied or is likely to comply with a demand from the Government of the People’s Republic of China … to censor the content of the project in a material manner to advance the national interest of the People’s Republic of China,” the document reads.

Hollywood and the Defense Department have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for decades. The Pentagon has allowed filmmakers to shoot their projects on military bases, Navy ships, or other locations, and weighs in on filmmaking processes. The military benefits from positive portrayals of service members, and moviemakers benefit from authentic settings and technical expertise.

But as China’s ruling Communist Party has developed increasingly advanced censorship and surveillance tools, countless American companies — including Hollywood studios — have sought to comply with Beijing’s demands while attempting to dodge stateside pushback.

Chinese government censors can be unpredictable and demanding. They pushed the producers of “Spider-man: No Way Home” to remove the Statue of Liberty, according to Puck. And they wanted the filmmakers of “Lightyear” to cut a short same-sex kiss, according to CNN. Neither of the studios complied, and neither film was released in mainland China.

In its new rule, the department will also weigh any “verifiable information” from people who aren’t connected to the production who indicate that the film could comply with a censorship demand.

Once DOD greenlights cooperation on a project, the agency assigns an officer to work with the filmmakers. From now on, the production company must notify that person “in writing of such a censorship demand, including the terms of such demand, and whether the project has complied or is likely to comply with a demand for such censorship.”

Cruz said he was pleased with the new rule.

“The Chinese Communist Party spends billions on propaganda and censorship,” he said. “For years Hollywood helped them by censoring movies so they could be screened in China, while still working with the U.S. government to get those very same movies developed.

“This new guidance — implementing the legislation I authored in the SCRIPT Act — will force studios to choose one or the other, and I’m cautiously optimistic that they’ll make the right choice and reject China’s blackmailing.”