The Crow director Alex Proyas’ mythological fantasy adventure, Gods of Egypt, received quite a bit of backlash from those that felt the principal roles were whitewashed. The story deals with the battles between a bunch of fictional Egyptian deities, who would obviously have been… well, Egyptian in appearance – and yet the cast is made up of predominately white actors.
Such a fuss was kicked up that Proyas and Lionsgate actually issued an apology, stating that they wish they’d made more of an effort to diversify the cast, and now one of the few actors of color in the movie, Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman, has shared his feeling on the matter during an interview with GQ:
I generally try to tune things like press controversy out, but some people around me told me, ‘Hey… you might wanna look at this.’ And when I originally was approached with the script, I thought this [critique] might come up, I really did. And I’m thankful that it did, because actually, I agree with it.
That’s why I wanted to do it, so you would see someone of African descent playing Thoth, the father of mathematics, astronomy, the god of wisdom. And in the movie, I actually outnumber the other gods in the movie, literally and figuratively. It’s hard for people to know that without seeing it. But yeah, people don’t make $140 million movies starring black and brown people. [Shakes head.]
Well, it doesn’t get much more blunt that that. Boseman is set to star in one blockbuster that will hopefully go a long way towards changing things in that regard: Marvel’s solo Black Panther movie. Prior to that he’ll debut as the character in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, and you can see what he brings to the role of Thoth when Gods of Egypt arrives in theatres on February 26th.