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China May Ban the New 'Ghostbusters' Because of the Ghosts

Sony is trying to rename the movie 'Super Power Dare-to-Die Team' in China to downplay the paranormal stuff.

Paul Feig's Ghostbusters reboot is opening in theaters across America this weekend whether people like it or not. Chinese moviegoers might not get to see it at all, though, because the country's government-run censor board doesn't "approve of films that promote cults or superstitious beliefs," Variety reports.

The Chinese censors have been known to ban US movies that deal with the paranormal in the past, sometimes requiring edits to the films and other times banning them outright, like the ghost-filled Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Thanks to the recent decline in Hollywood box office returns, studios are relying more and more on overseas money to make up the difference. Fox's X-Men: Apocalypse recently pulled in a whopping $59 million in China, and a big Chinese opening could really help Sony Pictures make back the $144 million it poured into the Ghostbusters reboot.

Sony has suggested renaming the movie Super Power Dare-to-Die Team for China—hoping to downplay the whole "ghosts" thing—and the censors will be screening the film soon. The verdict's still out, but things are looking pretty grim for a film that already has the most disliked trailer in YouTube history.

Read: A Brief History of Ghostbusters and Video Games