This weekend Exodus: Gods and Kings topped the box office. It overcame The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1. Perhaps most disconcerting of all is that according to Variety it “played particularly well to hispanic and African-American moviegoers,” despite the movie’s infamous whitewashing.
Granted, I do not expect to always mesh well with what the masses decide to throw their money at. Sometimes I am a gleeful participant in said masses; other times I stand at the sidelines massaging my temples and try to banish the images of smug studio execs from my head.
This is the latter. Considering that Exodus has been in headlines mainly because of 1) its egregious, nonsensical, almost boastful whitewashing, and 2) a spat of reviews warning the public not to see this movie because it’s just kind of a mess? I don’t know, I guess I got all optimistic in assuming that this one would just implode on its own, and that Ridley Scott and all potential future Hollywood whitewashers out there would have this one held up as an example of what not to do.
Alas: This movie made $24.5 million so far this weekend, winning the box office by over $10 million. Scott woke up to very good news this morning, and is probably having brunch somewhere as we speak, talking about how silly that 28% Rotten Tomatoes rating and all those bleeding hearts were.
You ever feel like Sisyphus? Just rolling a boulder up a hill and then watching it fall back down, ad nauseam?
We’ll try again next whitewashed movie, folks.
*Clarification/Silver Lining: It hardly raked in all the cash; the film’s international box office and performance in the coming weeks will determine whether it makes back its $140 million budget. It also didn’t have a ton of competition.
(via Variety) (Gif via Imgfave)
Are you following The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
