Egypt has banned Hollywood’s big screen biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings, according to a 20th Century Fox spokesperson reported Reuters.
Although, the studio declined to give a reason for the ban, films that depict biblical figures have been previously banned in various Muslim countries.
Paramount Pictures’ Bible tale Noah was banned in several countries in the Middle East this year for its depiction of a prophet, which is forbidden in Islam.
Exodus directed by Ridley Scott and starring Christian Bale, dramatises the Bible’s Book of Exodus about Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt.
The film, which has an estimated $140 million budget, has come under criticism for casting mostly white actors in lead roles and some historical anachronisms.
According to BBC News, a major reason why the movie has been banned by censors in Egypt is due to the “historical inaccuracies” of the film.
The head of the board of censorship said that the film wrongly depicted the Jews as having built the Pyramids and that it was not a miracle by Moses that caused the Red Sea to part but rather an earthquake.
Morrocco has also reportedly banned the film, which has so far grossed $107 million in two weeks in worldwide release.
The state-run Moroccan Cinema Centre (CCM) had earlier approved the screening of the film but according to reports emerging from the business website Medias24.com, the officials had decided against screening the movie only a day before its premiere.
Exodus: Gods and Kings has had an uninspired run at the box office so far and only managed to rake in $24.5 million in its debut weekend after being made on a budget of reportedly around $140 million.
The film’s opening has fallen short of other movies based on religious figures, such as the Darren Aronofsky’s Noah which took in $43.7 million after being released earlier in the year and even The Passion of Christ which collected $83.3 million in its opening weekend in 2004.
Despite this, the Biblical epic has managed to overtake the third installment in The Hunger Games series, which after three weeks at number one was replaced by Exodus.
Time magazine termed it a “cinematically uninspired retelling of the Moses story”, whereas the entertainment blog Vulture called it “as uneven as Ridley Scott’s career”, whereas the New York Times described it as being “both woefully insufficient and much too much”.
The film’s ban comes as Sony Pictures faced a devastating cyber attack blamed on North Korea for The Interview, a raunchy comedy that depicts a fictional plot to assassinate North Korea leader Kim Jong Un.
The hacker group which goes by the moniker of ‘Guardians of Peace’ or ‘GOP’ had threatened to perform acts of terrorism if the producers of the film and cinema owners did not pull the plug on the film.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 28th, 2014.
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