10 Big-Budget Movies That Were Doomed From The Start
7. Gods of Egypt
Gods of Egypt is one of those head-scratching Hollywood follies that makes you wonder why they even bothered to make it in the first place. Who exactly was this movie supposed to appeal to? At no point during production did anybody think it was going to be anything other than a colossal dud.
Director Alex Proyas cited Lawrence of Arabia, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the works of Sergio Leone as influences. As you would expect from a $140m alt-Egyptian fantasy epic written by the minds behind Dracula Untold and The Last Witch Hunter, right?
The cast of B-list actors with zero drawing power between them were then subject to accusations of whitewashing, something that studio Lionsgate and Proyas publicly apologized for, which did nothing to increase the movie's chances of success.
When Gods of Egypt was finally released, it was mauled by critics and limped to a meager $150m at the box office, confirming everyone's suspicions that there was no target audience for the project. Luckily for Lionsgate, tax breaks and pre-sales limited their financial write-down to just $10m.
Had it embraced the ridiculousness of the concept then maybe Gods of Egypt could have found a niche market, or earned a reputation as a high-camp cult classic. Instead the entire movie is played remarkably po-faced and serious, with only Chadwick Boseman seemingly in on the joke that the movie sucks.