Disney's `Beauty' to Be Screened in Malaysia With `Gay Moment'

(Bloomberg) -- Walt Disney Co.’s “Beauty and the Beast” will open in Malaysia later this month without removing gay scenes as demanded by local censorship authorities.

The studio initially decided to pull the film from theaters in the country rather than edit out what director Bill Condon has characterized as an “exclusively gay moment.”

“‘Beauty and the Beast’ confirmed for 30 March without cuts,” Golden Screen Cinemas, Malaysia’s largest cinema chain, announced on Twitter Tuesday.

Disney couldn’t be reached for comment outside of business hours.

The reversal adds to the good news for “Beauty,” which collected $174.8 million in U.S. and Canadian theaters over the weekend for the best March opening ever, according to researcher ComScore Inc. The movie also garnered $180 million in foreign markets, bringing its global haul to $350 million, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

With laws against homosexuality, Malaysia’s Film Censorship Board had approved “Beauty and the Beast” for a P13 rating with the requested cuts, Abdul Halim Abdul Hamid, the film board chairman, said in a text message last week. In the live-action remake of the animated classic, the character LeFou, the sidekick to the bad guy Gaston, makes references to his affection for Gaston and later dances with a man at a ball.

Abdul Halim couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Malaysia isn’t among the 20 largest film markets in the world, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Last year, Disney’s “Captain America: Civil War” collected $10.7 million at the box office in Malaysia, compared with a global box-office take of $1.2 billion, according to Box Office Mojo.

To contact the reporters on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net, Shamim Adam in Kuala Lumpur at sadam2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Crayton Harrison at tharrison5@bloomberg.net, Paul Barbagallo