When Gods of Egypt was released in 2016, it caused wide-scale controversy. This was mainly due to the predominant use of white actors in the role of the Gods. People argued that the Egyptian Gods should not have been white and that the film was blatantly racist. A year later, and the arguments have started once again. The fantasy action-adventure film was directed by Alex Proyas and written by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharples. There was an ensemble cast that included Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Elodie Yung, Chadwick Boseman, Courtney Eaton, Geoffrey Rush, and Gerard Butler.
Recently, Gerard Butler was asked if he regretted his involvement in the project following the controversy. The actor said that he didn’t even feel the need to apologize for the movie. Gerard played a villain in the movie, the Egyptian god of the desert, and he recently spoke about his opinions on the film. He said that although he understood the movement against the movie, it was about an Egyptian God that was not black.
Chadwick Boseman played Thoth, the Egyptian god of thunder., and it is the casting of this character that has been specifically called into question. In Egyptian mythology, this god has the body of an Egyptian and an Ibis’ head. However, in ‘God’s of Egypt’, the character has a normal head. Speaking of the casting choice, Butler argues that the Egyptian gods are intangible. He explains that the there is a diverse cast in the movie with actors from a variety of backgrounds and ethnicities. They have avoided conforming to the picture book stereotypes of how the Egyptian gods should look.
Butler has also talked about the diversity in the ‘Gods of Egypt’ to Yahoo movies. He explained that they tried to use different nationalities and backgrounds. According to Butler, there were actors from all over the world, including Ethiopia and Egypt. For this reason, he disagrees with the critics and believes they are just trying to damage the film.
The reason Gerard Butler choose to be a part of this movie was not to create an accurate period piece; he simply wanted to play a role that was fun and involved working with interesting material. The comments he has made are an indication that he thinks the flack the movie has received is unjustified, especially as the intention of making the movie was never to offend anyone.
When ‘Gods of Egypt’ was released in 2016, it made $150 million at the worldwide box office but only $30 million of this was made domestically. One reason for this is possibly the harm that was done by comments made about the casting which may have deterred moviegoers from watching this film. As the film cost a whopping $140 million to make, it is fair to assume that a ‘Gods of Egypt 2′ is unlikely.
While controversy about this film has reared its head again, Butler is focusing more on his most recent movie ‘Geostorm’. This science-fiction disaster film was released on October 20, 2017. It was co-written, produced, and directed by Dean Devlin. Gerard Butler is in the lead role and the film also stars Jim Sturgess, Abbie Cornish, Richard Schiff, and Alexandra Maria Lara.
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