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