Honestly, walking into a theater in 2016 to see the Gods of Egypt film felt like stepping into a fever dream that cost $140 million to produce. It’s one of those rare cinematic artifacts that defies logic. You have giant gold-blooded deities, a fire-breathing snake the size of a skyscraper, and Gerard Butler yelling with a thick Scottish accent in the middle of ancient Memphis. It’s chaotic. It's loud. It’s undeniably weird.
Most people remember the movie for two things: the massive controversy surrounding its casting and the fact that it bombed harder than almost any other blockbuster that year. But if you look past the noise, there is something weirdly earnest about Alex Proyas’s vision. Proyas, the guy who gave us The Crow and Dark City, didn't just want to make a generic action flick. He wanted to build a world where the earth is flat and the sun is literally towed across the sky by a giant space-barge.
It didn't work. At least, not for critics. Rotten Tomatoes currently has it sitting at a dismal 15%. But in the years since, it has developed this strange, cult-like following among people who love "maximalist" cinema. It's the kind of movie you put on at 2:00 AM because you can't believe it actually exists.
The Whitewashing Controversy That Sank the Ship
Before a single trailer even dropped, the Gods of Egypt film was already in hot water. The casting was, frankly, a mess. You had Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (the Kingslayer himself) playing Horus and Brenton Thwaites as the mortal thief Bek. Neither of them looks remotely Egyptian. In fact, almost the entire lead cast was white.
This wasn't just a Twitter spat. It got so loud that Lionsgate and Alex Proyas actually issued a formal apology before the movie even came out. That almost never happens. Usually, studios double down or stay quiet until the opening weekend passes.
"We recognize that our casting choices should have been more diverse... we sincerely apologize," the studio stated in 2015.
By the time the movie hit screens, the narrative was already set. It wasn't judged as a fantasy epic; it was judged as a relic of an old Hollywood mindset that was rapidly becoming unacceptable. It’s a shame, too, because the actual mythology they were trying to adapt is incredibly rich. They had the foundations of the "Contendings of Horus and Set," one of the most violent and bizarre stories in ancient lore, but the optics made it impossible for audiences to engage with the material fairly.
A Visual Style That Chose Chaos Over Reality
If you’ve seen the Gods of Egypt film, you know the CGI is... a choice. It doesn't look like Dune or Lord of the Rings. It looks like a high-budget video game cinematic from 2012.
Everything is shiny.
Everything is gold.
The gods themselves are literally taller than humans, standing about nine or ten feet tall.
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This created a massive technical headache. To show the gods interacting with mortals, the production had to use forced perspective and motion control rigs. Sometimes it looks okay. Other times, it looks like a kid playing with action figures against a green screen. There's a specific scene where Horus and Bek are walking through the desert, and the scale shifts so inconsistently that it feels like the characters are floating over the sand rather than walking on it.
Why the Design Failed (and Why It’s Kind of Great)
Most modern movies go for "gritty realism." Think of the Clash of the Titans remake or even the Marvel movies. They want things to feel grounded. Proyas went the opposite direction. He wanted a "techno-mythological" aesthetic.
- The gods don't just bleed; they bleed liquid gold.
- When they "power up," they transform into metallic, bio-mechanical suits of armor.
- The underworld isn't a cave; it's a terrifying cosmic gate.
It’s bold. It’s colorful. In an era where every blockbuster looks like it was filmed through a muddy filter, the sheer vibrancy of this movie is actually refreshing. It's ugly-beautiful. You can't look away from the screen because you never know if the next shot will be a breathtaking vista of the Nile or a CGI monster that looks like it belongs on a box of cereal.
The Plot: More Than Just a Revenge Story
At its core, the Gods of Egypt film is a simple usurpation story. Set (Gerard Butler) kills his brother Osiris during Horus’s coronation. He tears out Horus’s eyes—which are the source of his power—and declares himself the King of Egypt. Set is basically a divine dictator who turns the afterlife into a "pay-to-play" system. If you don't have enough gold when you die, you don't get into the Land of the Dead.
It’s a surprisingly dark concept for a PG-13 movie.
Enter Bek, a mortal thief who just wants to save his girlfriend, Zaya, from the underworld. He teams up with a cynical, blinded Horus to steal back the eyes and take down Set. The chemistry between Coster-Waldau and Thwaites is actually pretty decent. Coster-Waldau plays Horus as an arrogant jerk who has to learn that mortals aren't just ants.
But the real star? Geoffrey Rush as Ra. He lives on a space station above the flat earth, fighting a giant shadow worm named Apophis every single night. It is the most "metal" thing I have ever seen in a Hollywood movie. Ra is literally on fire, stabbing a space-squid with a spear to keep the world from being swallowed by darkness. It's peak cinema, even if it's ridiculous.
Why It Failed at the Box Office
Money talks. This movie cost roughly $140 million to produce, and that’s before you count the tens of millions spent on marketing. It pulled in only about $31 million domestically.
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That is a disaster by any metric.
Why didn't people show up? Honestly, it was a perfect storm. The whitewashing controversy turned off the progressive audience. The "Power Rangers" look of the trailers turned off the serious fantasy fans. And it opened in February, which is usually a dumping ground for movies that studios don't trust.
Also, the competition was stiff. People were still buzzing about Deadpool, which had come out a few weeks prior and completely changed the game for what an "edgy" genre movie could be. Compared to the fourth-wall-breaking, R-rated energy of Deadpool, the earnest, slightly clunky high-fantasy of Egypt felt out of date.
The Complexity of Alex Proyas’s Vision
It's worth noting that Alex Proyas was devastated by the reception. He went on a bit of a rant on social media after the reviews came out, calling critics "less-than-virtuous pale-skinned peckers" and "deranged idiots."
He felt that critics were more interested in being "politically correct" than actually looking at the art. While his delivery was definitely defensive, he had a point about the lack of original IP in Hollywood. The Gods of Egypt film wasn't a sequel. It wasn't a reboot. It wasn't based on a comic book or a YA novel. It was an original screenplay (by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless) that tried to do something new with ancient mythology.
In a world of Fast and Furious 10 and Avengers 27, there is something to be said for a director who swings for the fences and misses. Even a spectacular failure is more interesting than a mediocre success.
Examining the "Flat Earth" Logic
One of the coolest—and most overlooked—parts of the film is how it treats Egyptian cosmology. Most movies would try to explain away the gods as "aliens" (looking at you, Stargate or Marvel’s Thor). This movie doesn't do that. It says: "No, the gods are real. The earth is flat. Ra pulls the sun. Deal with it."
This commitment to the weirdness of the source material is actually quite rare. The film shows the "Abyss," the scales of Ma'at, and the various layers of the Egyptian heavens with a literalism that is fascinating. It’s not a historical movie. It’s a mythological movie. If you go into it expecting Gladiator, you’re going to hate it. If you go into it expecting a 1950s Ray Harryhausen creature feature with a 2016 budget, you might actually have a blast.
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What We Can Learn from Gods of Egypt
So, what’s the takeaway here? Is the Gods of Egypt film a misunderstood masterpiece?
Probably not.
It’s flawed. The pacing is weird, the CGI is hit-or-miss, and the casting was a major mistake that overshadowed the entire project. But it also serves as a cautionary tale for Hollywood. It shows that you can't just throw money at a project and expect the "blockbuster formula" to work if you ignore the cultural context of the story you're telling.
It also highlights the "Uncanny Valley" of big-budget filmmaking. When you use too much CGI, the stakes start to feel low. If nothing on screen is real, why should the audience care if a character falls off a ledge or gets hit by a giant snake?
Actionable Insights for Cinephiles and Creators
If you’re a film buff or someone interested in the business of Hollywood, there are a few ways to engage with this film beyond just watching it on a streaming service.
- Watch it as a "Case Study" in Production Design: Ignore the plot for a second and just look at the costumes and sets. There is a level of detail in the gold filigree and the "divine" architecture that is genuinely impressive. It’s a masterclass in how to build a cohesive (if polarizing) aesthetic.
- Read the Original Myths: If the movie piques your interest, look up the Contendings of Horus and Set. The real myth involves lettuce, boat races made of stone, and way more bodily fluids than a PG-13 movie could ever show. It makes the movie look tame.
- Compare it to "The Mummy" (1999): If you want to see how to do "Egyptian Adventure" right, go back and watch Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy. It balances tone, practical effects, and charisma in a way that Gods of Egypt never quite mastered.
- Follow the "Cult of the Failure": Look for video essays on YouTube (channels like Patrick (H) Willems or RedLetterMedia often discuss these kinds of big-budget swings). Understanding why a movie fails can often teach you more about the industry than understanding why a movie succeeds.
The Gods of Egypt film will likely never get a sequel. It won't get a "Snyder Cut" style redemption arc. But it remains a singular, bizarre monument to a specific moment in Hollywood history—a time when studios were still willing to spend $140 million on a wild, original idea, even if it ended up being a beautiful, golden wreck.
Next time it’s on cable or a random streaming platform, give it twenty minutes. You might find yourself transfixed by its sheer, unapologetic weirdness. It's a reminder that sometimes, the most interesting movies aren't the "good" ones; they're the ones that took a massive risk and crashed into the Nile.