"Gods of Egypt," Hollywood's upcoming blockbuster about ancient Egyptian deities, will be released as "Kings of Egypt" when it hits regional cinemas in late February.
The choice to rename Australian director Alex Proyas's controversial film for its Middle Eastern audiences comes from its primary distributor Lionsgate, according to its regional distributor.
“It’s the same film with the same cut. Nothing has been changed in the film. It’s just releasing under a different title. The studio decided to release it that way. We didn’t change anything," president of Jaguar Films Samy Khoury told Gulf News .
The film stars Gerard Butler, Geoffrey Rush, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Chadwick Boseman, Elodie Yung and Bryan Brown as ancient Egypt's iconic deities Set, Ra, Horus, Thoth, Hathor and Osiris, respectively.
It follows the ensemble cast as they enact a fantasy world in which Set takes over the ancient Egyptian throne, as Horus forms an alliance with Bek, who was a royal sculptor during King Akhenaten's reign, to save the world from his domination.
The film received widespread backlash after Lionsgate started promoting it last November, primarily because its casting appeared to be another case of Hollywood productions whitewashing non-white communities.
The film is portraying ancient Egyptian characters with a predominately white cast, with Boseman being the only non-white actor starring in a main role in the film.
The whitewashing controversy caused enough trouble to prompt both Lionsgate and Proyas to issue apologies for the lack of diversity in the film's casting choices.
The filmmaker directed his apology to "those who are offended," while the studio acknowledged the mistakes that were made and promised to "do better" in the future.
Moreover, the film has also come under fire for inaccurate depictions of the ancient Egyptian deities that go beyond their appearance. For one, the film seems to revolve around the premise that Set is a merciless evil force who destroys the world.
However, while Set represents seemingly negative phenomena in ancient Egyptian religion such as storms and disorder, he is not considered a deity to be feared or despised, but one with a crucial and positive role to play in the balance of the world.
Although the film is entirely fictional and doesn't claim to be historically accurate, it seems to be basing its narrative, like its characters, on superficial understandings and representations of the significantly rich cultural life of ancient Egypt.