Gods of Egypt Director Blames Critics For Box Office Failure

[omega 616]

What I don't understand is, as he says, his old films bombed out as well, so how is he still getting big name actors like Butler? Shouldn't he be relegated back to minor leagues?

As a very off topic comment, this site usually gets shit for it's captchas but these new ones are awesome, just check a box to prove you are human? Not sure how it knows from a box check but I love it.

 

[RJ 17]

I don't see why this guy is complaining. From my understanding this movie has all the makings of a cult classic that countless people will buy or at least rent just so they can laugh at how cheesy and bad it is.

 

[Erttheking]

Yeah it is the critic's fault. They told everyone that it was crap and no one wanted to watch it.

Now the film maker needs to tell me why this is a bad thing.

 

[Ukomba]

I wish people would stop using identity politics arguments against movies, games, books, ext. It just muddies the water unnecessarily. The movies bad. Last Air Bender was bad. The end. The makeup of the movies is irrelevant.

Would perfect casting have saved either movie? No.

Hey now, that's going a bit far. Silly and hammy, sure, but nowhere NEAR TLAB bad.

Which? Gods of Egypt or Last Air Bender, because Last Air Bender is a very nearly the Godwin's Law for movies.

 

[Fox12]

He's gone full shyamalan. Never go full shyamalan.

Never the less, I have a counter theory for the good director: people are tired of CG wank without any new ideas that missed the boat of cultural relevance by... oh how long has it been since 300?

Shyamalan dissed critics?

Spoiler

Frequently.

OT: I'm not a fan of critics either. I always get aggravated when they fail to understand a film, or when they create misconceptions about a movie. Truly great films can't be truly understood until years after they come out. End of Evangellion was fiercely divisive when it was released, and it still is. What bothered me is how misunderstood it was. Similarly, Silent Hill 2 and Demon Soul's were released to fairly decent reviews, but most people didn't realize how genius they were. A truly groundbreaking piece of filme can receive very negative press, not because the work is bad, but because critics don't know how to respond to being challenged. New things are hard to defend, and easy to malign, especially if you don't understand how the film made you feel, or if it made you uncomfortable.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, this was not the case with God's of Egypt. It was simply bad. Bad directors tend to blame negative criticism for their failures. Great film makers typically send their work out, and let people form their own opinions. They rarely feel the need to grandstand. Maybe this guy can go join George Lucas in whatever bar he's sulking in right now.

 

[Jorpho]

I watched Jupiter Ascending when it came to the cheap theater, and I'll probably see this the same way, mostly because I just like Dark City that much (even though Knowing rather sucked).

Jupiter Ascending was pretty bad, but its badness had such character and texture. It's like if you started with fresh, expensive gourmet ingredients and then bludgeoned them into a paste with a giant mallet. I would expect at least the same here.

 

[Random Gamer]

Sad to see how Proyas has fallen since Dark City...

I actually saw this atrocity. Ask me anything!

Did you lose a bet, to actually go to a theatre and see it?

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

I actually saw this atrocity. Ask me anything!

On a scale of 1-10, how high would you rate it as a "get shitfaced and laugh" movie, with 10 being the most entertainment value? Also, what would you say was the ratio of enjoyable cheese versus cringeworthy cheese in the movie?

OT: Wow, what a spectacular nail to punch into the coffin of this carcass of a movie. I haven't seen it, and I'm very not of the PolitCorrect crowd, but even I thought "what the hell were they thinking?" when they cast Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and Gerard Butler as egyptian gods. Had they cast egyptian, or even middle eastern people, they would have at least walked away with just the movie being a piece of shit, and without the added stain of whitewashing.

And $140 million went into this crap? What in the holy hell? The Oscar winner for visual effects was made with less than 20 million, and it had phenomenal effects. Every time we have a 90's style smothered-in-shitty-CG stinkbomb like this, I'm more and more astonished at how out of touch filmmakers and studios can still be.

 

[Drakmorg]

TL;DR, Director goes "My movie is completely perfect and utterly without flaws, and the only people who think otherwise are sheeple and those gross SJWs who don't think white people should play every role of any importance in any movie ever."

 

[Fappy]

What quote, taken out of context, sounds the stupidest? Don't ask me why I want to know, it's for Science!

That would require me to actually remember any specific lines. It wasn't a very quotable movie, lol.

Did you lose a bet, to actually go to a theatre and see it?

No, just peer pressured by a bunch of drunk people. I don't regret caving.

On a scale of 1-10, how high would you rate it as a "get shitfaced and laugh" movie, with 10 being the most entertainment value? Also, what would you say was the ratio of enjoyable cheese versus cringeworthy cheese in the movie?

I'd probably give the movie an 8 by that metric. As for the ratio, I'd say it was 50:50. There was some truly legendary cheese in the movie, but I also cringed every time a CGI character appeared on screen.

 

[Jute88]

Having only seen the trailer, the movie looks absolutely mundane and forgettable. At first I thought this movie was about Moses, but that's apparently some other movie.

 

[Silverbeard]

Makes sense to me, Mr. Director!
You make a shit movie and everyone's going to think it's shit. Make a less shit movie and people will think it's... less shit.
In short, don't blame people for seeing shit when all you've given them to see is shit. Just give them less shit to see if you don't want them to see shit.
Well, shit. Now I need to take a shit.

 

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

OT: Wow, what a spectacular nail to punch into the coffin of this carcass of a movie. I haven't seen it, and I'm very not of the PolitCorrect crowd, but even I thought "what the hell were they thinking?" when they cast Nicolaj Coster-Waldau and Gerard Butler as egyptian gods. Had they cast egyptian, or even middle eastern people, they would have at least walked away with just the movie being a piece of shit, and without the added stain of whitewashing.

I'll say the same thing that I said when Exodus: Gods and Kings bombed. black and Middle Eastern actors dodge a fucking bullet. If they casted them in this not only would they probably never act again but big Hollywood wigs would just blame that for its failure and be even more reluctant to cast them in the future. so I don't really mind.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I honestly feel bad for Butler, he was one of my favorite actors, but then he stood too close to Katherine Heigl and been wallowing in mediocrity ever since...

 

[Dragon Zero]

I really liked Dark City. I wish this movie was as good. I can understand feeling this way after something you put a lot of effort into turns to shit in your hands but I don't think it was the best idea to make this public display.

 

[Flatfrog]

Matthew Parkinson lauded Gods of Egypt's "unbelievably unoriginal" plot, childish dialogue, uninspired character arcs, and atrocious and excessive reliance on computer animation as the main reasons that the film was a "disaster."

I don't think that word means what you think it means

 

[Flatfrog]

If you look at his Rotten Tomatoes page, a 'descent into mediocrity' is a quite fitting description of what you'll see. Also, apparently Dark City and The Crow were well-received by critics - even at the time they were first released - so I dunno where he's getting his idea of near-universal critical panning from.

Absolutely!

Roger Ebert:

"Dark City'' by Alex Proyas is a great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like "Metropolis'' and "2001: A Space Odyssey.

James Berardinelli (Reel Views):

. It's rare for any film maker, whether a veteran or a newcomer, to create the kind of compelling, endlessly-fascinating environment that Proyas brought to the screen in The Crow. Now, with his follow-up movie, Dark City, the director incredibly manages to one-up himself.

New York Times:

The elements of that ride suggest that Proyas, who masterminded the popular teen-age mind-blower "The Crow," is a walking encyclopedia of weird science-fiction and horror imagery. At its best, the movie feels like a magician's trick, a gleefully improvised demonic fantasy of ominous evil genies conjured out of bottles and stirred into a steamy swirl that brings in everything from Franz Kafka to Vincent Price, from Fritz Lang to "Star Trek."

Even the less enthusiastic reviews are pretty good:
San Francisco Chronicle:

The plot is weak, and the self- conscious script tries too hard to be knowing and sexually suggestive. Judging from the dialogue alone, "Dark City" is a clumsy melodrama. But the film's twisting of reality and its daring look -- layered and off-kilter grays, greens and blacks -- make it click.

Empire:

while the majority of the performances are serviceable, it's the sheer overwhelming style that gets Dark City through. Proyas drenches each shot in a unique feel and delivers a movie with a visual sense with all the inventive, poetic power of Ridley Scott or Terry Gilliam firing on all cylinders.

 

[PBMcNair]

Implying Europeans like Shyamalans The Last Airbender

OT: That thing I'd only heard about due to peoples complaints bombed ?
Say it isn't so.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Honestly, I'm just impressed that they knew barely enough about Egyptian mythology to cast Set as the villain instead of Anubis. Sure, Set wasn't totally evil, but it's a better decision than all the Greek mythology movies casting Hades as the bad guy.

Never understood all the Hades hate myself. Zeus was the one going around as animals, and surprise sexing people.

 

[Pinky's Brain]

generic comteporary action movies like Taken, Shoot-Em-Up and London Has Fallen.

When Taken came out there hadn't been a good one man revenge/rescue movie for a long time and calling Shoot-Em-Up generic is just ridiculous.

The slightly familiar mythology with a twist grandiose fantasy movie has had a lot of play in the last decade (all failures).