How Disney’s Deadpool danced around China’s censors—cocaine, f-bombs and all

The arrival of “Deadpool & Wolverine" represents the latest turning point in the twisting relationship between the American entertainment industry and the world’s second-largest movie market: Hollywood’s raunchiest-ever export to China.

Entertainment executives who had grown accustomed to obeying strict censorship rules were surprised that “Deadpool & Wolverine" was released in China at all. To make it happen, editors in charge of adjusting the movie based on those demands got creative.

Out: Bawdy language and crass dialogue.In: Euphemisms for narcotics and certain body parts.

Local-language subtitles blunted edgier themes. Toward the end of the movie, one of the characters complains about drug-withdrawal symptoms: “I’m all out of devil’s dandruff and I’m shaking like an angry vibrator."

The English dialogue is still audible in the Chinese release, but the subtitles show the character saying more tamely that she’d beaten an old addiction, leaving out the reference to drugs. The word “vibrator" was swapped out for “massage gun."

“Deadpool & Wolverine" collected more than $440 million worldwide in its first weekend. That included $24 million from China, the highest opening-weekend performance for an American film since “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" in March and a rare bright spot since Chinese audiences started largely shunning U.S. movies two years ago.

Outside a shopping mall in Beijing, a fan of the film named Qin Hong stopped by a pop-up exhibit promoting the movie, snapping a photo of himself with a metal cutout of Wolverine. He’d heard the bad language in the new movie, but chalked it up to the type of roles the actors were playing.

“I wasn’t offended," Qin said.

To gain release in the China market, studio executives must screen a finished cut of each movie for a small group of propaganda officials. The censors watch for cosmetic infractions, such as a murder scene deemed too bloody or a sultry scene deemed too risqué. But they also look for what they interpret as deeper thematic problems, such as an undermining of the state or authority.

Decisions by Beijing’s movie gatekeepers are among several weathervanes that cultural leaders in the U.S. turn to for a read on relations between the two countries. Hollywood films started flowing into China in the 1990s, part of a broader economic thaw. When rhetoric between the Trump administration and the Chinese government heated up, the overall number of Hollywood movies allowed into China plummeted.

At one time, Chinese authorities had to limit the number of American titles to ensure Hollywood movies didn’t generate more than 50% of box-office sales in a given year. That thumb on the scale is no longer necessary—so far this year, American movies have flowed in at a regular clip, but their grosses have accounted for about 15% of the Chinese box office.

The plunge in popularity might explain why Deadpool and other R-rated titles are getting through.

“They may be looser because they can be," said one distribution executive. “We’re not a threat to them anymore."

There’s also an economic consideration at play, say distribution executives. Since Covid-19, China’s movie theaters have struggled to recover, a liability to an already-weakened real-estate market in the country, since most theaters are anchor tenants in malls and shopping plazas.

Starting around 18 months ago, Chinese authorities loosened censorship restrictions to try to use any title they could to lure people back to the theater and keep their domestic sector from imploding.

That means a weak commercial real-estate market might help explain how several lines of dialogue, about a creatively adjusted pair of nipple piercings or a reference to alcohol-induced impotence, survived the cut of “Deadpool & Wolverine." Many, many F-words and creative insults in the film are playing to Chinese audiences, too.

Chinese officials didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Deadpool has an elderly roommate in the film who is obsessed with doing cocaine. When the hero breaks the fourth wall and admonishes her, saying that Disney executives won’t approve of her lines, she responds with a series of euphemisms.

“Bolivian marching powder?" she asks at one point. “Do you want to build a snowman?"—a riff on a song from Disney’s 2013 animated hit “Frozen."

Deadpool tells her to hush up. “They have a list!" he says, referring to his overlords at Disney.

Beijing has a list, too. Chinese authorities have previously circulated a collection of rules to their country’s filmmakers. Some of them are specific: no references to masturbation (“Deadpool & Wolverine" lost at least one in China). Some are more open to interpretation: no “passive or negative outlook on life."

If “Deadpool & Wolverine" is any indication, drugs and homosexuality remain at the top of Beijing’s hierarchy of cinematic sins.

At one point, Deadpool explains the movie’s adherence to the multiverse—a comic-book concept of multiple coexisting timelines—by saying: “ ‘The Wizard of Oz’ did the multiverse too, and it’s been downhill. The gays knew it, but we didn’t listen."

That line was also modified in the Chinese version, with the reference to “the gays" removed.

“They did it best," Deadpool says instead, “but we didn’t listen."

While many of the film’s other explicit references were left untouched by censors, its Chinese subtitles struck out a generous dose of innuendo.

That didn’t bother moviegoer Kex Li, a longtime fan of Disney’s Marvel franchise.

“If it were translated directly, domestic audiences, with our different culture and background, would find it pretty tough to stomach," she said at the conclusion of a matinee screening this week in Beijing.

Other recent R-rated movies approved by China this year include the “Mad Max" sequel “Furiosa," released in June, and the forthcoming sci-fi sequel “Alien: Romulus," scheduled to make its debut there later this month.

A trio of R-rated movies getting approved for release doesn’t necessarily signal a durable shift for China’s Communist Party. Studio distribution executives said they’d already heard that new leadership in certain film-related departments have signaled a more conservative approach is due to return.

“Deadpool & Wolverine" joins a lineage of Marvel superhero spectacles that crested in global popularity just as China’s screen count and ticket sales were booming, providing a steady stream of record-setting grosses.

“Avengers: Endgame," released in 2019, remains the only American film among the 20 highest-grossing movies in China’s history.

Around that time, Deadpool’s creators went to great lengths to slip past Chinese censors.

In 2018, after the original “Deadpool" became a box-office sensation in the U.S. and much of the world, Fox, which produced the first two movies, released a recut version of a sequel titled “Once Upon a Deadpool."

It was decidedly tamer than the original film, and rated PG-13. Fox executives greenlighted the family-friendly version as a way to make their character palatable to censors in China.

It worked, and the movie opened to relatively healthy returns. Chinese audiences were treated to a different title, though: “Deadpool 2: I Love My Family."

Grace Zhu contributed to this article.

Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com and Brian Spegele at Brian.Spegele@wsj.com