Deadpool has been banned in China - and that's good for us

Probe your average filmgoer as to the comic book-based blockbuster they’re most looking forward to in 2016 and the chances are that it won’t have a big fat V wedged in the middle of it.

Not for nothing is Deadpool richly anticipated: promising proper bloody violence and filthy gags only a super solider turned vigilante played by Ryan Reynolds could provide, from the footage we've seen so far it might be the most close-to-the-knuckle Marvel superhero ever put on screen.

We won't be taking our mums to watch it, that's for sure. And neither will anyone in China, because the world’s second biggest film market has just banned the film completely.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, sensors took offence to its violence, nudity and colourful language – and while China has previously worked with R-rated US films to edit them into censor-friendly versions, sources close to Fox say it wasn't possible to excise the offending material without causing plot problems. Put simply, they've clearly refused to compromise on what they want the film to be.

Good for us, sure, but at some cost for the studio: 20th Century Fox. Now a key market for Hollywood (China is pretty much the only reason Michael Bay keeps churning those Transformers films out), the communist nation is opening 10 cinema screens every day – and rising.

As for us lucky folk who don't happen to live in China, Deadpool hits cinemas in all its lewd glory on 10 February.