"Pretty Woman" Was Called "I Will Marry A Prostitute To Save Money" In China, And 16 Other Details That Movies Changed For Different Countries

TIL: Disney had to change the name from Moana to Oceania to avoid confusion with one of Italy's most famous porn stars.

It's fair to say that film has become a truly international industry, with movies being shown all around the world and translated into various languages.

VH1

But sometimes, the release of a film in a certain country may lead to the filmmakers tweaking or changing various details for all sorts of reasons.

Let's take a look at 16 movie details that were changed for different country releases:

1. Iron Man 3

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Iron Man 3 has a running time of two hours and 10 minutes, in most of the world. However, in China, there were an additional four minutes added that included scenes and clips specific to China. 

During these extra moments, the movie included Chinese movie stars and product placement of Chinese goods. Dr Wu, played by mainland Chinese actor Wang Xueqi, has a scene on the phone with Iron man on a screen in the background with Chinese schoolchildren. He's seen operating on Iron Man later on in the movie. 

 Bloggers found the random placement of Chinese products – including a milk drink that Dr Wu drank and a heavy industry company – rather out of place in the movie, which sounds about right.

Here are some of the Chinese scenes:

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2. Moana

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

When releasing the hit movie throughout Europe, Disney ran into certain issues with their naming the film after the main character. In Italy in particular, Disney had to change the name from Moana to Oceania in order to avoid confusion with one of Italy's most famous porn stars, Moana Pozzi. 

It wasn't just Italy, however, because "Moana" is a registered brand throughout Europe. For branding and legal issues, they needed to change the name. This is why in Spain and some other European countries, the titular character is called "Vaiana" instead. 

3. The Wolf of Wall Street

Paramount Pictures

It's not surprising Martin Scorsese's profanity-ridden sex and drug fest of a movie wouldn't fly in certain countries where religion and regulations prevent such films from being shown. What is somewhat surprising, however, is the fact that it was shown in Dubai, where Gulf Film attempted to censor the uncensorable. 

A whole 40 minutes of the film was cut in order to make it what they deemed appropriate, and all profanities were bleeped out – for context, there are over 700(!) swears in the film, that's A LOT of bleeps! With so much cut or bleeped out, it understandably left viewers "disappointed and confused about the sequence of events". 

4. Cars

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Another Disney detail here, and it comes from Cars. Depending on whether you were watching from the US or UK, Lightening McQueen's agent, Harv would have been voiced by someone completely different. 

In the US, Harv was voiced by actor Jeremy Piven, whereas in the UK, he was played by Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson. I guess Disney wanted to drop in more of a familiar voice for each country's viewers. 

Here are the alternate Harvs

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5. Shrek 2

DreamWorks Pictures

Another voice-swapping between US and UK occurred in Shrek 2, where, similar to Disney, Dreamworks chose to add a more domestically familiar voice to a side character for particularly attentive viewers. 

In the US, the voice of the Ugly Stepsister comes from television chat show host Larry King, but in the UK Dreamworks chose TV host Jonathon Ross to voice the same character – clearly, they saw TV hosts as the perfect Ugly Stepsisters. 

6. Pride and Prejudice

Universal Pictures / Focus Features

Speaking of longer running times for different countries, when Pride and Prejudice was released in the US, viewers would have seen a movie that was eight minutes longer than the original UK version. This extra movie time was due to an added smooch-filled end scene with Elizabeth Bennet kissing Mr Darcy in a romantic setting. 

The scene was reportedly added after positive testing from US audiences, but the Jane Austin Society of North America was apparently highly unimpressed, saying: "It has nothing at all of Jane Austen in it." 

Here's the last scene:

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7. Zootopia

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

The film had different newscasters depending on where it was being shown! Viewers in the UK would have seen a Corgi, for New Zealand and Australia the anchor was a Koala (which rightfully pissed off Kiwis). Canada and France had a moose, Japan a Tanuki, and China a Panda!

That's not the only thing Disney changed depending on the country however, you may have been confused, like I was, by remembering the name of the film to be different when you first saw it. Well, that's because they changed the name for UK viewers to Zootropolis, just so they would have a unique name for the movie.

Ryshat's Corner @RyshatsCorner

#Zootopia newscasters by region. US/moose, Japan/tanuki, Australia/koala, China/panda, UK/corgi, Brazil/jaguar.

03:09 AM - 06 Mar 2016

Twitter: @RyshatsCorner

8. Inside Out

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Pixar once again recognised cultural differences and attempted to adapt to them when creating Inside Out. Firstly, in the scene where Riley's dad is trying to feed her broccoli, the vegetable of choice was actually changed to green peppers for the Japanese release. According to the Pixar artist, David Lally, this was because they are more commonly disliked amongst kids than broccoli over there. 

It wasn't just the broccoli scene that was changed in Inside Out.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Another scene that was different for viewers across the world was Riley's dad's daydream at dinner. Viewers in the U.S and some other countries saw a hockey scene playing out. 

However, other nations opted for the scene depicting a game of football (soccer), as in other parts of the world it was a far more popular sport than hockey.

9. The Shining

Warner Bros.

Stanley Kubrick was obviously a stickler for detail, particularly when filming The Shining – he made Jack Nicholson axe his way through 60 doors before getting the right version. 

He also realised that the typewriter scene with "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" wouldn't hit the mark in other countries if subtitled, and thus made alternative versions for separate countries. The typewriting said various different sayings for different countries including: 

Italy: "The morning has gold in its mouth."

Spain: "No matter how early you get up, you can’t make the sun rise any sooner."

France: "What you have is worth much more than what you will have."

10. Captain America

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

When Steve Rogers woke up from the block of ice he'd been in for decades, he had some catching up to do. Luckily, he had a handy notebook of big cultural milestones to help him get to grips with modern society, what's interesting is that the contents of that list were different for various countries, different releases included the following:

U.S: "Moon Landing, Berlin Wall up + down, Steve Jobs (Apple), Disco.

"U.K: "TV Show – Sherlock, The Beatles, World Cup Final (1966)."

Spain: "Rafa Nadal, Chupa Chups, Héroes del Silencio."

Latin America: "Chilean Miner's Rescues, Maradona's Hand of God, Shakira."

11. The Descent

Pathé Distribution

For this gruesome British horror movie, Lionsgate did the opposite of Pride and Prejudice when it was released in the U.S. As a result of the disheartening original ending, and the subsequent negative reaction from British audiences, they decided to release the movie without its particularly depressing finale. Instead, the director replaced these last few minutes with a less downbeat alternative shot that he'd done – it's still not exactly a happy film. 

12. Toy Story 2

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

In Toy Story 2 when Woody has been taken by the collector and Buzz must rally the gang to save him, he gives a rousing speech to galvanize them. 

International and U.S viewers would have witnessed a completely different image behind Buzz. In the US, Buzz was standing giving his speech in front of the American Flag, whereas in other counties, there was a spinning globe with fireworks going off behind him. I guess Disney thought that international viewers wouldn't be as enamoured by the patriotic imagery. 

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13. Lincoln

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictues

Speilberg's movie was actually subtly changed for non-US audiences for contextual and educational purposes. While viewers in the US would have been well aware of Lincoln's presidency and the context surrounding it, the distributors and director thought international audiences may benefit from some context. 

That's why, before the Civil War battle scene, a message appears on the screen, set to a John Williams score, which contextualises the narrative using original black and white images.

They went even further for the movie's release in Japan, where Speilberg actually appeared on screen before the film to give a preamble in his own words!

14. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

New Line Cinema

This Mike Myers spoof was also the subject of censorship, but it was the actual title of the movie that changed. In Singapore, the Board Of Film Censors found that the original title was too "crude and offensive", and thus they instead titled it "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shioked Me." 

'Shioked' loosely means 'nice' or 'good', which means the title was roughly changed to 'The Spy Who Was Nice To Me.' – TBF, that is far less crude and not at all offensive. 

15. Die Hard

20th Century Fox

The creators and distributors of Die Hard encountered a problem when releasing the movie in Germany, due to the German nationality of the group led by Hans Gruber.

Their solution? Make the baddies Irish instead. Yep, that's right, instead of a group of Germans thieves taking over the building, it was a band of Irish criminals led by none other than Jack Gruber...

16. Pretty Woman

Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Pretty Woman was subject to another pretty ridiculous title change when released in China. When it came out in Chinese Cinemas, viewers were buying tickets to see a film called ‘I Will Marry a Prostitute to Save Money’ – a very frank title TBF.

Know any other movie details that were different in other countries? Let us know in the comments below!