> suck up to the Chinese audience

Less the Chinese audience and more the CCP State Censors.

And whichever organization selects which films get to be shown in China. Some films do much, much better in China than in the US thanks to this; some examples are the Transformers films, the Warhammer film, and someone else already mentioned Pacific Rim and Iron Man.

Basically, if there's a Chinese secondary actor and / or a Chinese location and they're not the definitive bad guys, it's been tweaked for and co-developed with China.

Now I don't say that's a bad thing per se, I kinda like there being a propaganda force in blockbuster films to compete with that of the US. I would much prefer no propaganda, but at the same time I feel like high budget action blockbusters can't do without.

Also take the word 'propaganda' with a grain of salt, it's usually nothing over the top, or limited to "this country or these people are not put in a bad light"

I for one would love to see more films where the Americans aren't considered the heroes.