I just watched the latest Marvel superhero film, Captain America: The Winter Soldier — which was quite enjoyable — but what really jumped out at me was a scene when Steve Rogers (the Captain) writes in a little booklet about things he needed to check out, having spent 65+ years frozen. He added a Marvin Gaye album, and above that there was Thai food. But higher up on the list, I noticed there was the movie Oldboy and footballer Park Ji-sung.
Sure enough, in the United States, people saw a rather different list.
A pretty amusing little big of localization, I thought. I’m surprised Hollywood doesn’t do that sort of thing more. After all, when you are spending $150 million or whatever on a blockbuster, why not add a couple more dollars and CGI in something local for each market?
When the aliens destroy some city, I bet people in England would love to see London blown up, and people in France could see Paris blown up, people in Japan could see Tokyo blown up, and people in Korea could see Tokyo blown up (joking).
Anyhow, Captain America. I wonder how many countries got their own customized list. I’m sure sites like Comicbooknews will be tracking them all soon enough. It was a fun little idea.
