Gods of Egypt is on track to flop in the box office.
Gods of Egypt, a movie about Egyptian gods featuring a bunch of white actors, is likely to be a huge box office flop this weekend, according to estimates.
Even the movie’s director Alexy Proyas apologized for the movie’s whitewashing, way before the movie’s release saying, “It is clear that our casting choices should have been more diverse.” Apparently, basically no one wants to see this movie, which is expected to bring in $15 million through opening weekend.
Variety reports:
The $140 million production is staring down the barrel of a $15 million domestic opening, a paltry start for a film with such a big price tag. At one point, Lionsgate had teased the idea of spinning “Gods of Egypt” into a new franchise, but analysts say that for a film of this size to justify sequels, it needs to open to $30 million or higher.
According analysts, “This is on target to be one of the biggest box office belly flops of 2016. They didn’t greenlight this film with the thought of having one film. They greenlit it hoping to get three films out of this.”
The box office success of Deadpool is also holding back the Gods of Egypt, even though studios seemed to know that this was coming for some time:
Sources close to Lionsgate stress that the company has protected itself from potential losses through a combination of foreign pre-sales and a 46% production incentive from the Australian government for shooting in the country.
The movie’s potential fail also supports new research out of UCLA that found that moviegoers are more interested in movies with a diverse cast.
Via The Hollywood Reporter:
The report, “2016 Hollywood Diversity Report: Business as Usual?,” showed that films and television shows with casts that roughly reflect the nation’s racial and ethnic diversity posted the highest box office and ratings numbers on average.
