May 18 (UPI) -- Russia's culture minister Vladimir Medinsky has proposed charging more for movie tickets to view films made in the United States.
The proposal Medinsky says, is to protect the Russian film industry from Hollywood competition as tickets to see homegrown films would not be affected.
"Currently a ticket for a Hollywood movie and one for a Russian movie costs the same - 230 rubles ($4) - and that's wrong," he said according to the BBC.
Medinsky did not specify how much more expensive tickets to view Hollywood films should be. Russia previously enacted a regulation in 2015 that allowed their government to set release dates for films in order to give preference to local films as opposed to U.S. releases.
Recently, Russia proposed banning Disney's live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast as the film featured a gay character. The film still arrived in Russia, but was given a higher adult rating of 16+.
