Gerard Butler

It’s odd — as our planet rapidly hurdles towards any number of very real oblivions, disaster-porn movies have started to play a little more fancifully. ‘Malfunctioning weather-controlling spacecraft triggers climate cataclysms’ sounds like a kinda quaint way for the world to end, as opposed to nuclear holocausts or World War III or a total breakdown of humanity’s societal order. It’s been a minute since the Earth last swallowed up its inhabitants with the earthquake-sploitation picture San Andreas, and frankly, it’s just a relief to see a fictitious vision of the apocalypse that’s not entirely our fault.

If you’ve seen 300, then you’re very familiar with the Spartan soldiers’ costumes: A helmet, a cape, a shield, and not a whole lot else. Among those Spartans, only one, Gerard Butler’s King Leonidas, has a helmet with a plume on it. Did you know that the real historical Spartans all had plumes on their helmets? Director Zack Snyder decided to change that detail in order to make Leonidas stand out, and easier to identify in the midst of the film’s battle scenes. That’s just one of the facts featured in the newest episode of You Think You Know Movies!

Few actors in life have embraced their status as a walking, talking action figure quite like Gerard Butler. Once in the running to play James Bond  —  he had apparently been considered for Daniel Craig’s role in Casino Royale  —  Butler seems to have abandoned his ambitious side in recent years, content to grin his way through violent action movies about Egyptian demigods and jingoistic secret service agents. For a while there, it looked as though Butler might have given up on anything . And then Snow Ponies came along.

Gerard Butler’s environmental disaster movie Geostorm is in a perfect storm of its own. Most of the time, when news leaks out that a film is undergoing reshoots, a bigger deal is made of it than it actually deserves. The two big ones this year were Suicide Squad and Rogue One, which both seemed to have changed huge parts of their stories months before their release. Geostorm is the latest movie to enter reshoot hell, but that’s not all: it’s also getting a new director.

Oh my god, that TITLE. It’s impossible to imagine the scenario in which this title was decided on unanimously by a group of rational adult humans. What comes after Olympus Has Fallen and London Has Fallen? Angel, clearly. But the title of the next installment in the Help, Gerard Butler, the President Has Fallen and He Can’t Get Up series is Angel Has Fallen, which does not refer to David Boreanaz or Roma Downey and Della Reese, but to Air Force One.

The Wikipedia page for Gods of Egypt says “Lionsgate anticipated [it] to be the first film in a new franchise after it finished releasing The Hunger Games films.”

Gods of Egypt is looking to get in on some of that Super Bowl hype with its very own prime TV spot, which has arrived online ahead of tomorrow's big game, proving that even the most ridiculous movies need some Super Bowl attention — actually, this one could really use it. Alex Proyas' new fantasy-action film has drawn plenty of scorn for its mostly-white cast and its abundance of CGI silliness, and the best case scenario is that we've found this year's Winter's Tale.

Gods of Egypt is a big budget project that sort of came out of left field, but the negative feelings inspired by its trailer and promotional materials are quite familiar. Set in Egypt, the new film from director Alex Proyas features a mostly white cast, recalling Ridley Scott’s unfortunate casting choices for Exodus: Gods and Kings. But unlike Scott, Proyas and Lionsgate are expressing remorse for the decision by issuing public apologies.

The text says this is Gods of Egypt. And I recognize some of the actors here: Gerard Butler as Set, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus, Brenton Thwaites as Bek. And I know the director, Alex Proyas, a talented visual stylist who’s made films like the original Crow, Dark City, and Knowing. But what the hell did they make? Unlike so many of these big, loud wannabe blockbusters, Gods of Egypt isn’t a remake of an old movie, or based on a comic book or a video game. And it’s got big crazy CGI effects and Gerard Butler ripping out Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s eyes, and then people fighting giant fire-breathing snakes, and flying dudes with wings. It’s like the Clash of the Titans remake made a baby with Immortals, and then the baby got beat up by 300. Just weird weird weird.

After separate uproars were raised following studio decisions to cast a well-bronzed Jake Gyllenhaal as Middle Eastern in Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time and a comparably well-bronzed Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, and Aaron Paul as Egyptians in Exodus: Gods and Kings, one might imagine that Hollywood executives would get the picture and stop passing white performers off as other races... Read