Gods Of Egypt director Alex Proyas labels film critics 'deranged idiots'

As 20th Century Fox's Deadpool remains #1 of the box office for the third week in a row, the recently released Gods of Egypt seems to have fallen by the wayside thanks to its continued domination, opening to just $14 million (£10m). Deadpool is not be entirely to blame however, as looking back at the marketing presence surrounding Gods of Egypt, its been surprisingly minimal given its two drawable lead actors (Gerard Butler and Game Of Thrones' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).

It didn't get off to a great start either, given that last year the movie came under fire for having a nearly all-white cast despite being set in Egypt. Recently, the film has been critically panned in the wake of its release, scoring just 12% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and only a 5.7/10 on IMDb.

Now it seems like the combination of Gods of Egypt's box office and negative reactions seem to have been the final straw for director Alex Proyas, who took to Facebook to share an explosive rant about modern day film reviewers. Dismissing the objections to the movie's main cast as political correctness, Proyas claims that critics today write reviews solely based on the existing consensus rather than their own personal opinions.

Read his thoughts in full below:

"NOTHING CONFIRMS THE RAMPANT STUPIDITY OF MAN-KIND... Like reading reviews of my own movies. I usually try to avoid the experience – but this one takes the cake. You see, 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. They fail to understand, or chose to pretend to not understand what this movie is, so as to serve some bizarre consensus of opinion which has nothing to do with the movie at all. 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. None of them are brave enough to say 'well I like it' if it goes against consensus. Therefore they are less than worthless. Now that anyone can post their opinion about anything from a movie to a pair of shoes to a hamburger, what value do they have – nothing.

"[Nowadays] we have a pack of diseased vultures pecking at the bones of a dying carcass. Trying to peck to the rhythm of the consensus. 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."

Regardless of whether you agree with Proyas and his rant against critics, his timing proves a little unfortunate. Gods Of Egypt was only released in US cinemas three days ago, being met with a multitude of negative opinions from movie goers (evidently fuelling his Facebook post) and a somewhat disappointing opening weekend. Considering that, it seems likely that many will construe Proyas' viewpoints as bitterness rather than a fair observation on journalism.

While he does present some interesting points about everyone's opinions being so accessible to critics these days what with Twitter and even just the internet, and that in some cases they can be influenced, it's certainly not an unwritten rule across the board of reviewers. We can think of a couple of recent films such as Pan and Dirty Grandpa, which polarised critics' opinions across the world. For even more appropriate example, Ethan Alter from Film Journal International labelled Proya's fantasy adventure "an enjoyable remake" with "an appealing cast" while Amy Nicholson from MTV states that "the movie perfectly itself," is "a bizarre, yet cohesive, construction" and "surprisingly good fun."

We suggest you just make up your own minds on it really, if you like the look of the CGI-heavy trailer that boasts a half-naked Butler and Coster-Waldau (genuinely), then Gods Of Egypt is out in US cinemas now and is expected to reach the UK sometime this year.