(NewsNation) — Moviegoers in China watching the newest film in the “Despicable Me” franchise will experience a slightly different ending than those in other countries.
The country altered “Minions: The Rise of Gru,” a prequel that explains how Gru becomes a villain. In the movie, a teen Gru wants to be a villain and interviews to join a club full of bad guys.
Released in July in the U.S., the Hollywood version ends with Gru walking off with co-conspirator “Wild Knuckles,” who faked his own death to evade capture.
Chinese authorities rewrote the ending with subtitled still images saying “Wild Knuckles” was caught and locked up for 20 years. And Gru eventually becomes a good guy devoted to raising his family — his biggest accomplishment being a father to his three girls.
Universal Pictures, the studio that released the movie, hasn’t commented on the altered ending.
The movie opened in July and has grossed $835 million worldwide so far. It grossed $3.2 million on opening day in China last Friday.
It isn’t the first time China has given an alternative ending. “Fight Club” came to China within the last year, and the government got rid of the skyscrapers being blown up at the end, instead saying police figured out the plot before the destruction could happen.
Fight Club’s author was OK with the changes.
“In effect what China has done in their single card at the end, they changed it back to be more similar to the book, but for their own reasons,” Chuck Palahniuk said in an interview with TMZ in January.
The original ending was later restored.
There’s a long list of U.S. productions that have been changed. LGBTQ plots in “Friends” were taken out when it started streaming in China this year, and Disney’s animated film “Lightyear” didn’t release in China because the company behind that film refused to remove a scene of two female characters kissing.
Many filmgoers weighed in on Weibo — China’s version of Twitter — saying they were surprised by the different ending and disappointed it ended with a screen freeze and the new plot given in subtitles.