But criticism from China was only one issue facing MGM executives at the time. The studio had been paying about $300 million in annual interest on an outstanding $3.7 billion loan during the development of “Red Dawn,” and filed for bankruptcy protection before shooting wrapped. To raise money, MGM started selling off some newly completed productions.
Rival studios came in to determine whether they wanted to buy “Red Dawn.” But something had changed in the two-plus years between the moment Mr. Passmore was told to cast China as the villain and when the movie was ready for release. Work on the script had started in the summer of 2008, and filming wrapped in late 2009—days before “Avatar” would gross more than $200 million in Chinese theaters and awaken Hollywood to the nation’s economic potential. The trend line was clear: box office was rising in China just as it was stagnating in America.
By the time editing finished in mid-2010, no Hollywood executive would touch a movie that turned their most important new customer into the villain. If MGM itself released the movie, even just in the U.S., China could retaliate by refusing to show the studio’s more lucrative James Bond movies in its market.
For the producers of “Red Dawn,” that meant the only solution was a drastic one: changing the enemy in the film.
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