The Silicon Review ^Asia

Marvel movies are making a triumphant return to the Chinese box office after nearly four years.

On February 7, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever will be released, and two weeks later, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Since Spider-Man: Far from Home opened in Chinese theatres in July 2019, these will be the first Marvel movies to do so. Chinese authorities have never provided an explanation for why Marvel movies were forbidden from being screened there. However, the apparent restriction started while trade tensions between the US and China were at an all-time high.

Marvel did not provide a justification for the change of heart in its brief Wednesday announcement on the movie release dates on the Chinese social media platform Weibo. But cinema buffs were still in frenzy over it. Disney might have lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the Chinese market's decline in recent years. According to Box Office Mojo, the first Black Panther film in 2018 made US$105 million in Chinese theatres, while the second Ant-Man film made $121 million in the same country.

In China, there is strict regulation over international film screenings, with an annual limit. The China Film Administration, a section of the CCP's propaganda bureau, makes the choice of whether or not a foreign film can be shown in China.