Weinstein, who claims he has good relations with the Chinese government, has gone to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, which is where he decided to do the bulk of the filming, after 35 days of shooting interiors in Britain.

Producer Mike Medavoy, who spent the first seven years of his life in Shanghai, said, "We have the greatest respect for China, and Shanghai will look to capture and celebrate this great country."

Weinstein and company can't afford bad relations with China, having raised $285 million dedicated to making movies in Asia starring local actors.

Our thoughts exactly, although the Jet Li/Jackie Chan kung-fu fantasy The Forbidden Kingdom isn't the kind of sexy, vaguely political American imposition the Chinese have in mind when evicting Harvey and Co. In any case, we suspect Harvey was shocked to arrive ready for diplomacy only to find Chinese culture minister Sun Jiazheng decked out in a STOP DARTH WEINSTEIN T-shirt given to him by an earlier, unidentified American visitor, who apparently punked him into believing it said WELCOME WEINSTEIN COMPANY. Those Fanboys loyalists — always thinking two steps ahead.

• Weinstein's Asian Persuasion [NYP]

This is clearly a vain attempt by the Weinstein Company to avert Star Wars fans' impending boycott of all of their films. Well, guess what? It's not going to work, Darth Weinstein!

There was never any doubt that you would release both versions of the movie on DVD — probably months apart, so as to leech as much money from Star Wars fans as possible! ...

There is only ONE VERSION OF FANBOYS - THE ONE THAT WAS MADE BY STAR WARS FANS! ... If you release your mutilated anti-fan version of FANBOYS in ANY FORM, you can look forward to a lifetime boycott of your studio by every Star Wars fan on the planet.

As such, the Fanboys supporters are sticking to their picket plans for this weekend, with sizable protests scheduled in both New York and Los Angeles. Knowing what we know about Harvey, though, we expect this to be all the compromise these guys are going to get. Moreover, where the hell are all the Wong Kar-wai fans to protest Harvey's cut of the long-delayed Norah Jones / Jude Law / Natalie Portman road flick My Blueberry Nights, finally opening April 4 with an ugly, sludgy sheen added in edit bays sequestered deep inside the Weinstein Death Star. Even Roosevelt and Stalin had the common sense to ally against the Axis 65 years ago; with art-house romantics and and sci-fi geeks on the same page, we're confident Harvey Scissorhands wouldn't have a prayer.

• Geeks Get Their Movie... Kinda [The Hot Blog]

• DARTH WEINSTEIN MAKES A DESPERATE LAST-MINUTE ATTEMPT... [Stop Darth Weinstein]