- Streaming giant Tencent sparked outrage when it altered the end of the film "Fight Club" for Chinese viewers.
- In Tencent's edited version, the police win, and Brad Pitt's character is sent to a mental hospital.
- But the platform has since restored 11 of the 12 minutes it cut, the Hollywood Reporter said.
Chinese streaming platform Tencent has reportedly restored the original ending of the iconic 1999 film "Fight Club" in China, weeks after its censored version sparked massive social media outrage.
Previously, the company had altered the ending so that the authorities win and Brad Pitt's character, Tyler Durden, is admitted to a mental asylum. In doing so, it had cut a big chunk of David Fincher's film, replacing a crucial explosion scene at the end with a title card instead.
Now, Tencent has restored 11 out of the 12 minutes its cut, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The missing minute contains nudity, the trade rag said.
It is unclear why the streamer decided to reverse its censorship decision, considered a rare move in China. Tencent did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Stanley Rosen, a China film expert from the University of Southern California, believes that the company may have since gotten approval from the state to restore the ending after the cuts had made headlines around the world.
"China is hosting the Olympics and trying to show they've come of age in the global community. They don't need the distraction that this event caused, so presumably Tencent got approval to restore those cuts," he told Insider.
When Tencent first made the cuts last month, it set off a social media storm in China over censorship practices.
"Not only do they cut scenes, they had to change the story completely. This has become a Chinese-only joke. Even dogs won't want to watch this," one user said on China's Twitter-like platform Weibo.
Another Weibo user commented: "This is exactly why, even if you have streaming platform subscriptions, you still have to watch pirated versions."
Many social media users at the time also pointed out how the edited version essentially takes away the film's most surprising reveal — that Durden is not a real person, but an imaginary alter ego.
Amid the film fans' outrage, Chuck Palahniuk, the author of the book upon which the film is based, said in an interview with TMZ that the censored ending is actually closer to his vision.
"The irony is that the way the Chinese have changed it, they have aligned the ending almost exactly with the ending of the book, as opposed to Fincher's ending, which was the more spectacular visual ending," he told the site.