Footage of a Chinese character dying, and references to prostitution and torture were edited out of the Chinese release of the 2012 James Bond film. One scene completely cut included a hitman (Ola Rapace) killing a Chinese security guard. In another, Bond (Daniel Craig) questions a woman (Berenice Marlohe) about her tattoo, which indicates she had been forced into prostitution as a child. The audio was kept in, but the subtitles instead read she was being extorted by the mob. When Javier Bardem’s Raoul Silva tells Bond about being captured in Hong Kong and then tortured, the subtitles did not tell the whole tale.
Driven by the one-two punch of Skyfall and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, MGM saw its 2012 revenue surge to $1.38 billion, up 97 percent over the previous year.
MGM Holdings, the parent company of MGM, reported Monday that its adjusted EBITDA for the past calendar year was $286 million, an increase of 48 percent over 2011.
While the company’s worldwide theatrical revenue increased $661 million, led by its pair of fourth-quarter blockbusters, the company also logged higher distribution and marketing expenses in launching the two movies, resulting in net income for the calendar year of $129 million.
While MGM didn’t debut any major new TV titles, its worldwide television licensing revenue increased by $23 million to $395 million. And while no new titles were released through its home entertainment division, its home entertainment revenue — buoyed by James Bond 50th anniversary promotions in the fourth quarter — amounted to $195 million, an increase of slightly more than $1 million over the prior year.
Skyfall, which has grossed $1.1 billion worldwide, is the biggest Bond release of all time, and combined with Hobbit — the first film in Peter Jackson‘s trilogy based on the J.R.R. Tolkien novel — MGM also can boast of being the first company with back-to-back $1 billion grossers.
“I am very pleased with our strong results for 2012, reinforcing my optimism about the future of MGM,” chairman and CEO Gary Barber said. “With back-to-back films each grossing worldwide box office in excess of $1 billion, MGM now has two of the top 15 films in box-office history.”
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