Gods of Egypt is a 2016 American fantasy action film directed by Alex Proyas based on ancient Egyptian deities. It stars Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Brenton Thwaites, Chadwick Boseman, Élodie Yung, Courtney Eaton, Rufus Sewell, Gerard Butler, and Geoffrey Rush. The film follows the Egyptian god Horus, who partners with a mortal Egyptian thief, on a quest to rescue his love and to save the world from Set.
Filming took place in Australia under the film production and distribution company Summit Entertainment in collaboration with Thunder Road Pictures and Proyas's production company Mystery Clock Cinema. While the film's production budget was the parent company Lionsgate's financial exposure was less than $10 million because of tax incentives and pre-sales. The Australian government provided a tax credit for 46% of the film's budget. When Lionsgate began promoting the film in November 2015, it immediately received backlash for its predominantly white cast playing Egyptian deities. In response, Lionsgate and director Proyas apologized for their ethnically-inaccurate casting.
Gods of Egypt was released in the United States, Canada, and 70 other markets on . It received generally negative reviews from critics and grossed a total of $150.7 million against a $140 million budget, becoming a box office failure and losing $90 million for Lionsgate. It received five nominations at the 37th Golden Raspberry Awards.
Plot In ancient Egypt, where the gods live among the mortal humans, thief Bek and his lover Zaya attend the coronation of King Osiris and Isis's son, Horus. However, Osiris is killed by his jealous brother Set, who then defeats Horus and takes his eyes. Set proclaims himself the new king and commands humans to pay riches to pass into the afterlife.
One year later, with Egypt enslaved by Set and Isis having committed suicide, Zaya steals plans for Set's pyramid from chief architect Urshu. Bek uses the plans to infiltrate Set's treasure vault and steals one of Horus's eyes, but he and Zaya are caught by Urshu, who kills Zaya as she and Bek try to escape. Bek takes her body to the exiled Horus along with the eye and promises to help find the other if he brings Zaya back from the dead. Meanwhile, Set launches an assault on the rebels and claims the wings of his wife Nephthys.
Bek and Horus visit the solar barque of Horus's grandfather Ra, who is neutral about matters in Egypt and in conflict with the shadow beast Apophis, which threatens to eat the world. Ra does not restore Horus's power but allows him to take a vial of divine waters to weaken Set. Ra explains that Horus's loss of his powers is the result of not fulfilling his destiny, which Horus believes means avenging his parents' deaths.
Returning to Egypt, Bek and Horus escape from Mnevis, who is then killed by Set for failing to stop them. Set orders Hathor to take him to the underworld, but she refuses and joins Bek and Horus after rescuing them from Astarte and Anat. They hatch a plan to infiltrate Set's pyramid, recruiting Thoth to solve the riddle of the guardian sphinx. Passing the pyramid's entryway and the sphinx's riddle, they reach the source of Set's power, but before using the divine water they are ambushed by Set, who incapacitates Thoth and takes his brain, traps Horus and Hathor and destroys the water vial. Horus breaks the trap and Hathor calls on Anubis to take Bek to save Zaya, offering her bracelet as Zaya's payment for passage to the afterlife, but in doing so exiles herself to the underworld.
Absorbing Thoth's brain, Osiris's heart, Horus's eye, and Nephthys's wings, Set confronts Ra aboard his solar barge. Ra explains Set's mistreatment and impotency was a test to prepare him to take Ra's place as defender of the world against Apophis. Dismayed, Set decides to destroy the afterlife to become immortal and uses his new powers to overpower Ra. Set takes Ra's spear and throws him from the barge, freeing Apophis to consume the mortal and underworld realms. As Apophis attacks, Anubis closes the gates to the afterlife. Not wanting an afterlife without Bek, Zaya refuses Hathor's gift and encourages Bek to return to Egypt and help Horus defeat Set.
As Horus battles Set atop an obelisk, Bek kills Urshu before removing Horus's other eye from Set's armor, mortally wounding himself in the process. Regaining his power to transform, Horus flies after Bek, realizing his true destiny is to protect his people. With renewed strength, Horus outmaneuvers and kills Set. Finding Ra wounded in the aether, Horus returns his spear, healing Ra enough to repel Apophis and Anubis to reopen the gates.
A child returns Horus's other eye and the god lays Bek in Osiris's tomb beside Zaya. For his deeds, Ra offers to bestow Horus with any power and Horus asks that Bek and Zaya be brought back to life. Ra restores Bek and Zaya, as well as the gods who had not already passed into the afterlife. Horus is crowned king and declares access to the afterlife will be paid with good deeds in life. Bek is made chief advisor and gives Hathor's bracelet to Horus, who leaves to retrieve her from the underworld.
Cast
In addition: Lindsay Farris provides the voice of an older Bek who narrates the film. Yaya Deng and Abbey Lee appear as Astarte and Anat, goddesses of war who are loyal to Set and ride giant fire-breathing cobras. Goran D. Kleut provides the voice and motion-capture of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god who leads Zaya into the underworld. Alexander England provides the voice and motion capture of Mnevis, the leader of the Egyptian Minotaurs that work for Set and can assume a human form. Kenneth Ransom provides the voice and motion capture of the riddle-giving Sphinx that guards the entrance to Set's pyramid.
Production Development
Gods of Egypt is directed by Alex Proyas based on a screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless. The film was produced under Summit Entertainment. Proyas was contracted by Summit in May 2012, to write the screenplay with Sazama and Sharpless, and to direct the film. Proyas said he sought to make a big-budget film with an original premise, to contrast franchise films. The director cited the following films as influences on Gods of Egypt: The Guns of Navarone (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Sergio Leone's Western films. Lionsgate anticipated that Gods of Egypt would be the first film in a new franchise after it finished releasing The Hunger Games films.
Casting Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau was cast in June 2013. Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, and Brenton Thwaites joined the cast toward the end of 2013. Chadwick Boseman and Élodie Yung joined the cast at the start of 2014.
Filming The film was shot in Australia. A crew of 200 began pre-production in Sydney in New South Wales, and producers considered filming in Melbourne, Victoria, to take advantage of the state's tax incentive. Docklands Studios Melbourne was too booked to accommodate Gods of Egypt, and producers were instead offered an airport facility for production. The Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria competed to be the location of the film's production, and Summit selected New South Wales in February 2014. New South Wales Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner estimated that the production would add 400 jobs to the state and contribute million to its economy.
Principal photography began on , 2014 at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney. The setting of Anubis' temple was filmed at Centennial Park in Sydney, and visual effects were laid over the scene. The production budget was . Jon Feltheimer, the CEO of Summit's parent company Lionsgate, said Lionsgate's financial exposure was under due to tax incentives of filming in Australia, as well as foreign pre-sales. The Australian government's tax credit to have the film produced in the country covered 46% of the production budget, and most of the remaining budget was covered by the foreign pre-sales.
In the film, the gods in humanoid form are tall and in "battle beast" form are over tall. Proyas used forced perspective and motion control photography to portray the difference in height between the actors portraying the gods and the humans. Proyas called the logistical challenge a "reverse Hobbit", referring to The Lord of the Rings films, in which Hobbits are depicted as shorter than humans. For the sphinx, actor Kenneth Ransom portrayed the giant creature via motion-capture. For the god Thoth, who can appear as many copies, actor Chadwick Boseman was filmed hundreds of times from different angles. For a scene with many copies of Thoth, other actors took a day to film the scene, where Boseman filmed the scene for three days.
Music
Composer Marco Beltrami, who scored Proyas's previous films Knowing (2009) and I, Robot (2004), returned to score Gods of Egypt.
Racial and ethnic casting White actors, predominantly of Northwestern European descent, make up most of the principal cast of Gods of Egypt. When Lionsgate began marketing the film, the Associated Press said the distributor received backlash for ethnically inaccurate casting. Lionsgate and director Alex Proyas both issued apologies. The AP said, "While some praised the preemptive mea culpa... others were more skeptical, concluding that it's simply meant to shut down any further backlash."
The casting practice of white actors as Ancient Egyptian characters was first reported after filming started in March 2014, when Daily Lifes Ruby Hamad highlighted the practice as "Hollywood whitewashing". Lionsgate released a set of character posters in November 2015, and The Guardian reported that the casting received a backlash on Twitter over the predominantly white cast. Some suggested that the casting of black actor Chadwick Boseman, who plays the god Thoth, played into the Magical Negro stereotype. The previous year, the biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings by director Ridley Scott received similar backlash for having a white cast. The Washington Post'''s Soraya Nadia McDonald also disparaged the casting practice for Gods of Egypt and said Lionsgate released the posters at an unfortunate time. She said with the release of Aziz Ansari's TV series Master of None in the previous week, "Whitewashed casting and the offensiveness of brownface has pretty much dominated the pop culture conversation this week. Promotion for the movie is beginning just as we're wrapping a banner year for discussions of diversity and gender pay equity in the film industry."
When Lionsgate followed its release of posters with a release of a theatrical trailer, Scott Mendelson at Forbes said, "The implication remains that white actors, even generic white actors with zero box office draw, are preferable in terms of domestic and overseas box office than culturally-specific (minority) actors who actually look like the people they are supposed to be playing." He said almost none of the actors, aside from potentially Butler, qualified as box office draws. BET's Evelyn Diaz said while Ridley Scott had defended his casting practice for Exodus by claiming the need to cast box office draws, "Gods of Egypt is headlined by character actors and Gerard Butler, none of whom will have people running to the theater on opening day." Deadlines Ross A. Lincoln said of the released trailer, "Casting here stands out like a sore thumb leftover from 1950s Hollywood. I suspect this film generates a lot of conversation before it hits theaters February 26, 2016."