12/15 - 'The Gods of Egypt': Alex Proyas Grapples With a Size Issue In Fantasy Adventure

[becozy]

From Forbes

The mythical gods in Alex Proyas’ fantasy adventure Gods of Egypt stand nine foot tall in humanoid form but when they transform into battle beasts they shoot up to 12 feet or so and sprout armour, animal heads and wings.

The height ratios of the gods and the normal-sized human characters posed a logistical problem for the director of the $US140 million epic which Lionsgate will launch in the U.S. on February 26 (2016).

“Sustaining this concept for an entire movie was frankly a complete pain in the arse,” Proyas reveals in his Facebook page, a running commentary on the Summit Entertainment production which is in post at Fox Studios Australia. “I described it as doing a ‘reverse Hobbit’ i.e. all the mortals are normal height but Horus, Set, Thoth, Anubis and Hathor are very tall and otherworldly. And Ra? Well don’t get me started.

“We used an assorted number of techniques, some quite simple and ‘traditional,’ namely forced perspective, often shooting with two cameras side by side, other techniques involved the dreaded motion control, which I hate using as it is kind of like watching paint dry. But the results are pretty spectacular if I might say so. And I am not easily impressed.”

Using his Facebook page as a virtual blog, the filmmaker expresses his disdain for contemporary superhero movies, describes Gods of Egypt as a love story on many levels, and signals his ambition to turn Frank Herbert’s seminal 1964 sci-fi novel Dune into a trilogy.

Proyas makes only a passing reference to the controversy over the alleged whitewashing of the characters, which prompted apologies from the director and Lionsgate, both acknowledging the casting should have been more diverse. The screenplay by Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless follows mortal hero Bek (Brenton Thwaites) as he sets out to save the world and rescue his true love. He enlists the help of the powerful god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) in an unlikely alliance against Set (Gerard Butler), the god of darkness. The cast includes Chadwick Boseman as Thoth, Geoffrey Rush as Ra, Rufus Sewell as Urshu, Elodie Young as Hathor and Gordon Kleut as Anibus.

[Texas gramma]

It's a shame "politically correct" has come to this.