A bit of a hue and cry over Hugh (Jackman).
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Most people would be terrified to take on Wolverine and the X-Men, but the Indian censor board has decided to take a slice out of the superhero team by editing a small portion of the new film X-Men: Days of Future Past.
The film, which releases on Friday in the US, India, and several other major international territories, is has been edited for Indian audiences due to one brief shot of an exposed buttocks, belonging to Wolverine (played, for the seventh time, by Oscar-nominee Hugh Jackman). The move continues a streak of rigidity exhibited by India’s Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), which has rubbed Hollywood the wrong way in recent months over the strictness of its rules.
Last year, writer/director Woody Allen flat-out prevented his film, Blue Jasmine, from being distributed in India after the CBFC demanded that each shot of a character smoking had to have a disclaimer on-screen saying “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health.” The film may have cost the producers a bit of money, but Allen ultimately had the last laugh when he picked up an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and star Cate Blanchett won the Oscar for Best Actress.
The decision to censor X-Men: Days of Future Past will likely have very little bearing on the film’s box-office power, however. Distributor 20th Century Fox has gone all-out in promoting the $225 million film, with a massive marketing campaign that is likely in the realm of $150 million itself.
The studio has inked deals worth about Rs. 12 crore (roughly $2 million), reports The Economic Times. Micromax alone signed a Rs. 4 crore deal on promotional tie-ins for the latest and largest X-Men film, with Mountain Dew, Garnier Men, Norton Antivirus, and TVS Motors filling in the rest of that large marketing campaign.
Additionally, the film is set to release not just in English, but in regional languages like Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, in order to boost exposure and sales. Hollywood films have begun doing this with increasing frequency, as big-budget superhero epics have been making big splashes on the subcontinent.
Earlier this month, Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 made the biggest Hollywood debut ever in India, beating the previous record-holder: 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man. The last X-Men film, X-Men First Class (last year’s The Wolverine was a solo film, not an X-Men team picture) brought in Rs. 16 crore in India – X-Men: Days of Future Past is expected to eclipse that.
The film continues the trend of creating large superhero team-ups on the big screen, bringing together the casts of the older X-Men films from 2000-2006, with the more recent First Class ensemble. The film has been tracking well, and is drawing in glowing reviews (it currently sits above 90% on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes).
The trailer for X-Men: Days of Future Past can be viewed below: