The new movies "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "Fast and Furious 7" kicked off successfully in China and both pulled in hundreds of millions of dollars more than it did in the U.S. The giant successes of those box-office movies demonstrate China's growing influence and control over Hollywood at present.

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Because of the fat paychecks that China gives to Hollywood, the Communist Party now has a say on how most of the movies portray China. The Chinese government has a free hand on which movies are allowed to be screened in its country, and filmmakers now have to take into consideration how they can attract Chinese audiences and how to avoid scenes deemed offensive to the Party, NPR explains.

In contrast to the movie-rating system of the U.S., China censors at the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of the People's Republic of China (SAPPRFT) are the only ones who have the power to block media content considered offensive for the general public. These can include scenes portraying sex, politics, expletives, violence, culture, or undesirable portrayals of their country.

In "Mission: Impossible III" for instance, some of the scenes shot in Shanghai show Tom Cruise walking along the street with clothes and undergarments hanging from clotheslines shown at the background. When it was screened in 2006, those scenes were deleted from the movie because censors did not want to the movie to show that many Chinese citizens still do not own dryers, according to T.J, Green, chief of China-based movie theater company Apex Entertainment.

"The censorship always goes back to the Communist Party. They're in charge and they're always looking at how China is portrayed," said Green. "They didn't want to see something that portrayed it ... [as] a developing country."

In "Skyfall," the most recent 007 movie, censors cut out a scene showing an assassin shooting down a security guard in Shanghai to enter a skyscraper. They do not want the world to see China as a country that cannot adequately defend itself, the report continued.

Based on estimates by Apex, China's movie market will surge above North America to become the biggest in the world in a few years. Because of this, some filmmakers are scrambling to add scenes designed to please Chinese audiences even if those scenes are quite incongruent with the overall setting.

Ying Zhu, a media culture professor at the College Staten Island in New York, said he is worried that China's increasing economic power would give the Communist Party too much influence over Hollywood.

However, Peter Shiao of China-based film production firm Orb Media Group is positive that China's audiences will want to see better movies and not depend on what the Communist Party wants them to watch.

Tagshollywood, Fast & Furious 7, censor, movie