One can only imagine that the past few months haven’t been easy for director Alex Proyas. The director and Lionsgate were already on the defensive about their big, expensive, CGI- filled "Gods Of Egypt," apologizing for the film’s lack of diversity, not long after the (not so impressive) first trailer dropped. Then the movie opened this weekend, the box office results were dismal ($14 million), and the reviews even worse. But Proyas will be a punching bag no longer.
The director hit Facebook earlier today and unleashed a tirade against film critics, and what he perceives to be their tendency toward group think. With insults ranging from "deranged idiots" to "less than worthless," he says that criticism is irrelevant in the modern era, and that writers are putting up their opinion of what they think people want to hear, rather than their own honest assessment. Here’s an excerpt:
I have never gotten great reviews… on any movie I’ve made really, apart from those by reviewers who think for themselves and make up their own opinions. Sadly those type of reviewers are nearly all dead. I guess I have the knack of rubbing reviewers the wrong way – always have. This time of course they have bigger axes to grind – they can rip into my movie while trying to make their mainly pale asses look so politically correct by screaming "white-wash!!!” like the deranged idiots they all are.
…this modern age of texting has rendered them less than worthless, so they will probably go the way of the dinosaur or the newspaper shortly – don’t movie-goers text their friends with what they thought of a movie? Seems most critics spend their time trying to work out what most people will want to hear. How do you do that? Why these days it is so easy… just surf the net to read other reviews or what bloggers are saying – no matter how misguided an opinion of a movie might be before it actually comes out. Lock a critic in a room with a movie no one has even seen and they will not know what to make of it. Because contrary to what a critic should probably be they have no personal taste or opinion, because they are basing their views on the status quo.
…I applaud any film-goer who values their own opinion enough to not base it on what the pack-mentality say is good or bad.
Meanwhile, in a calmer conversation with Collider, the director shared his thoughts on the brewing remake of "The Crow" at the beleaguered Relativity, and he’ll at least be heartened to know that many people share his thoughts that the picture doesn’t really need to be made.
"I personally feel like it’s kind of unnecessary. I’ve said this many times, I’ve completed the original movie to honor Brandon [Lee] and that’s the sole reason I did it. I’m happy I did it for that reason. I sort of feel like it’s his legacy and I personally don’t have a lot of time for people trying to reignite that movie in other ways. So you know, to me, this is one situation where it would be nice if Hollywood kind of left it alone and let it remain Brandon Lee’s legacy," he said.
Check out Proyas’ full Facebook statement below, and if you gave "Gods Of Egypt" a shot this weekend, let us know what you thought of it in the comments section.
NOTHING CONFIRMS THE RAMPANT STUPIDITY OF MAN-KIND…Like reading reviews of my own movies. I usually try to avoid the…
Posted by Alex Proyas on Sunday, February 28, 2016
I think "Dark City" and "Knowing" are masterpieces but Gods of Egypt looks like CGI-CRAPFEST PG-13 kiddie fare and I am so sick of these childish, brainless PG-13 CGI kiddie movies. Contrary to what I\’ve heard some say, "turning your brain off" is NOT fun and you are stupid if you seek this.
To "Unknown" who thinks Dark City got positive reviews from critics, you might want to check reviews at the time it was actually released. Critics didn\’t pan it, but only a handful loved it (one of them being the great Roger Ebert). Otherwise, most critics never looked past its special effects and ridiculed its story. And the movie effectively bombed. Today it is recognised as one of the great science fiction films of the 1990s, but not back in 1998.
Proyas, while speaking with a certain hyperbole, certainly has a point.
Also, "Unknown", might I suggest a bit of humility? The man is a film director, he probably knows better than you what critics thought of his movies. Just saying.
Dark City was a great movie as was The Crow. The sequels were terrible. There is NO need to remake The Crow at all and should be left alone. If he made more movies or even a sequel to Dark City with a different spin then it might work but to resurrect The Crow again is ridiculous and just to make money is even worse. Leave It Alone…. Of course Gods of Egypt bombed it open during Oscar weekend a bad weekend to open any movie because people go to the movies the least. I saw the previews and thought I was looking at 300 again.. Proyas and M Night Shaylamar or however his name is spelled are from the same fabric different cut.
LOL…I called "bomb" on that one about 1/4 second after seeing the 1st ridiculous preview. I\’ll watch it when it comes to cable (in about a month) just to see if it\’s as bad as Jupiter Ascending….
Screw diversity. Diversity = racism against whites and blacks are always screaming it. Just wish blacks would go back to Africa.
My comment up above^^ is @Blanka
First off, Rylance did have the better performance in "Bridge of Spies" then Stallone did in "Creed". Rylance deserved the Best Supporting Actor Award more so. Stallone was only nominated truly because of sentimental reasons. His performance was good & award nominated worthy but a winning performance overall? No. Secondly, "Avatar" is outstanding? Really? Man, you have low standards for being "outstanding". It\’s a gimmick film with a weak story. Time really hasn\’t proven anything for "Avatar" other then yes, it was a gimmick film that wasn\’t anything great & no, it didn\’t deserve to win Best Picture. "The Hurt Locker" was boring? Nah…it had it\’s issues but boring? No.
I think the man has got a point.
Even if he doesn\’t I\’d always prefer to draw my own opinion from watching a movie. For instance, Deadpool was good, but not THAT good; There\’s no way the boring "Hurt Locker" is a better movie than the outstanding "Avatar" (and time confirms that); and Stallone deserved the Oscar for best supporting actor.
But hey, I don\’t make those decisions, eh?
Or the fact that you want to base a story about the past and once again only white people get the lead role in films about history, if you know the story evolved from egypt mythology, which didn\’t include them describing their gods as white men! come on it\’s as bad as the last samurai being tom cruise or the Mexican being brad pitt people
@Keith Hill- Screw you fool. Just because I don\’t put my name on a freaking comment board doesn\’t make my comment worthless. Actually, my comment is completely accurate. Calling me a "troll"? You clearly don\’t know what a troll is. P**s off!
I saw this multi million dollar cartoon and If I can get my money back; please send it quickly. Terrible, stupid , ridiculous cgi b.s./ It even made the popcorn taste bad—-MY HONEST OPINION
It cracks me up that he says "this modern age of texting will make them [go away]" ..I think hes about 10 years behind. If texting had any effect of film criticism, I think we would have seen that by now. Its like he just discovered internet critics, that frustration is old, old news. If you want to be successful now, thats something you should have gotten over a while ago. Oh, and make films with some integrity maybe.
I agree with both entities. Gods of Egypt is not a good film, having nothing to do with the lack of diversity, it is just not that good, and film critics are pretty much mindless lemmings who regurgitate what every other critic already beat them to saying that morning.
If you haven\’t gotten favorable reviews, maybe you haven\’t made good movies? Kind of simple honestly. Critics are as popular as they were, and I doubt they can be replaced by "friends texting friends". My friends can tell me they like a movie but a critic can give me a different opinion or some insight I wasn\’t aware of before. Channels like Nostalgia Critic, YourMovieSucks, these channels aren\’t going anywhere. Maybe accept the criticism and try to better yourself. An artist saying they can\’t create art because of critics aren\’t great artists. They\’re whiny.
The movie was fun….just simple entertainment. Not every movie made has to be "the best ever made"…… Give it a chance and stop making such a huge thing of reviews….. They are only someone\’s personal opinion. I prefer to make up my own mind….
BRIAN ROSENTHAL is a moron, pixels was pure trash, and gods of egypt is even worse, it has no place in theaters and deserves all the negative criticism
Filmmakers love critics when their films are loved and they hate film critics when their films are hated. Make your films and stop worrying about critics. However, if you make a film and you put it in public, understand people have a right to criticize. And critics are people. From my experience I have seen far harsher reviews by the audience or on Amazon or chat boards than from critics. So filmmakers need to stop blaming critics if their movie is not well liked.
Surprise! The theater was full for GOE this afternoon. The audience clapped at the end. A bit too long for me, but the audience seemed
happy. Other comments elsewhere also mentioned good attendance.
Haven\’t seen "Gods of Egypt" so I cant comment about it but does anyone really read what Film Critics say about a movie?…I know I don\’t.
I don\’t get it. If movie was bad why not make it. Brain coughing not agree sum.
THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY the God Seti and All Every Africa in my homeland is WHITE. This Propanda White-wash Dogma will never be supported by the righteous collective of Black, Brown, or Yellow. 3+ Billion people on the planet.
All that production money and they couldn\’t give Anubis fur? Everything else looks good, but Anubis looks like some luggage I used to own. For that alone, I\’ll wait until it\’s free on On Demand.
Wow, what a sore loser. Proyas makes the kinds of big popcorn movies that are critic-proof…when the audience likes them. When they don\’t, reviews good or bad aren\’t going to make much difference. But it\’s typical for a director who\’s made a big expensive flop to blame the critics, since blaming the audience or the studio will backfire on them. So here Proyas is doing the familiar thing of saying both that critics are redundant dinosaurs and that they somehow ruined the prospects of a movie that somehow everyone would have loved if they hadn\’t been poisoned by bad reviews. So, which is it? Are critics powerless and irrelevant, or powerful meanies? You can\’t have it both ways. Unless, of course, you are frantically trying to find someone else to blame for your having made a $150 million mistake.
Much like the other guy said, I have no idea how good or bad "Gods" is. The trailer made me think, "Eh, I like giant monsters, I\’ll rent it some time" But his comments on critics in general are spot on. Good on him for calling them out.
But concerning Proyas\’ tangent about reviewers becoming obsolete because of texting, I don\’t see how that assertion makes any sense. People could tell their friends about movies before texting was invented, and yet reviewers still exist.
Well, the whole "not diverse enough" controversy was crapola and a non-issue raised by the PC police that has too much time on their hands to worry about actually important things, so I still don\’t understand why they have to apologize for casting the actors that get the budget for the film.
I enjoy Proyas\’ work, but I must say that, idiotic controversy aside, the film is weak and not that interesting.
Well, there\’s always next time.
I buy his argument that reviews from "film critics" are, positive or negative, absolute trash. The formula for these things goes as follows: name drop a few directors or films of bygone days to display some semblance of film knowledge (bonus points for mentioning a female editor or a non-white cinematographer) + summarize the film in the broadest sense possible + try to one up the burns or laud being hurled at the film by the rest of the blogosphere = job done. To be fair, though, most people find good reviews – that is, ones which aren\’t concerned with whether the movie was good or bad but rather are interested in doing a reading of the film – to be boring, because those reviewers are using theory and philosophy among other things to make their arguments about the film. Also, those reviews are over 10,000 words. You can\’t find these types of reviews for every film, because in general they\’re written by film professors who only have enough time to become obsessed with a film once a year or so, but when you can find them they\’re always worth the labor you put into reading them; stimulating and insightful as hell.
"…o they will probably go the way of the dinosaur or the newspaper shortly – don\’t movie-goers text their friends with what they thought of a movie?.."
Yes they do…. that\’s why your movie only made 14 million. I was going to go see it because I like sword and sandal flicks. My friend saw it earlier in the day and called me to say not to waste my time, that it was worse than "The Immortals"
I haven\’t seen this movie so I can\’t say anything about that but, insults aside, I do think he\’s right that critics seem to decide about a movie, sight unseen, and never change their minds even when they see it.
They are largely pointless these days, in a time when anyone with a webcam can go on you tube and do what they do and, from what I\’ve seen a lot of the online critics are, generally, followed more than the \’professional\’ ones.
Also, not for nothing, but statistically speaking, a scathing, angry, funny review will always do better in views/shares than a simple positive review. I.E. an over-the-top negative review MAKES ONLINE CRITICS MORE MONEY. Food for thought.
Can\’t comment on the quality of Gods of Egypt, but the net DEFINITELY loves to either condemn or exalt everything to the absolute extreme. I remember last year when Pixels and Ant Man came out– reviews would have you believe one was an amazing little gem of a film, and the other was worse than cancer. Couldn\’t disagree more. Pixels was dumb fun if you turn your brain off, and Ant-Man bored the everloving crap out of me. Guarantee you Gods of Egypt is standard sword n\’ sandal/fantasy blockbuster fair, no better, no worse.
^^^ to this guy. If you\’re not willing to even put your name by what you said about this filmmaker….then you\’re opinion is worthless. A troll. Screw yourself mate
Proyas is the deranged idiot. He\’s never gotten positive reviews from critics? Yeah he has. His films "The Crow" & "Dark City" all got positive critical reviews overall. Proyas is truly misguided about critics let alone his emotions are getting the best of him because his latest film "Gods of Egypt" got assaulted by critics (which the film deserved) & the film practically tanked financially in its first week. Does Proyas expect to receive positive reviews for bad films? If Proyas wants a better critical consensus on his films then make better films. Proyas has shown that he\’s not really bright overall & is rather imprudent in what he is saying.