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Will ‘Monkey Man’ Even Be Released in India? An Uphill Battle with Censors Awaits

Will 'Monkey Man' even be released in India? A censorship battle awaits with the country's Central Board of Film Certification.

For instance, Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight” was nearly incomprehensible in Indian theaters, with the sound frequently dropping out, and characters who died violent deaths on-screen in the original simply disappearing from the story. When the 2018 Marvel movie “Black Panther” was released in India, a line spoken by the tribal, ape-mask-wearing leader M’baku (Winston Duke), in which he proclaims “glory to Hanuman,” was muted. Universal declined to comment on this change, but it wasn’t long ago that the 2023 Bollywood blockbuster “Pathaan” came under fire for a “vulgar” saffron Bikini, while Universal’s own “Oppenheimer” faced blowback and threats of boycott in India for a scene involving the Hindu scripture the “Bhagavad Gita.” Many speculate that the change in the party’s color coding is an attempt to pre-empt and avoid Hindutva outrage, since it decouples the film’s fictitious religious extremists from their real-world equivalents.

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