Top Gun: Maverick was so good it killed China’s attempt to make a copy
The movie was reportedly pulled because it “risked ridicule in comparison.”

Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste
Top Gun: Maverick Photo: Paramount
The bad guys in Top Gun: Maverick may have been explicitly vague other people from some other place with some other ideology in an attempt to make sure the movie would still play in countries that Hollywood has… historically offended. That mostly worked out, with the movie making a ton of money internationally, but it never did get a release in China for a few reasons. One of those reasons was the existence of Born To Fly, a movie that was supposed to come out in the country earlier this year and was pretty clearly designed to be China’s answer to Maverick—with all of the rah rah military propaganda that implies.