Avatar pulled for commercial reasons: Official

A senior Chinese film official denied rumors the government is forcing the movie Avatar off theater screens.

Zhang Hongsen, vice-director of the film bureau of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, told reporters on Tuesday that the decision to pull Avatar from 2-D screens in China was a commercial one, not a government order.

"The 2-D version has not performed very well at the box office, while the 3-D version's tickets are very hard to purchase," he said at a seminar on the James Cameron sci-fi blockbuster. "So to take the 2-D version off the screen is quite normal."