Ridley Scott Filmed Slammed for ‘Racist’ Casting; Rupert Murdoch Tweets Odd Defense

Ridley Scott’s latest film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, is being attacked for having an all-white cast. Some believe that this is way out of bounds since the film is largely set in Egypt. Exodus, which ...
Ridley Scott Filmed Slammed for ‘Racist’ Casting; Rupert Murdoch Tweets Odd Defense
Written by Mike Tuttle
  • Ridley Scott’s latest film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, is being attacked for having an all-white cast. Some believe that this is way out of bounds since the film is largely set in Egypt.

    Exodus, which stars Christian Bale as Moses, was directed by Ridley Scott and distributed by 20th Century Fox. Ridley Scott told Variety that his cast is white for a simple reason: money.

    “I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such,” Scott explained. “I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”

    As Variety points out about the very white casting, “the same could be said of The Passion of the Christ, Noah, The Ten Commandments and virtually any other big-budget Bible movies.”

    But Rupert Murdoch, who owns 20th Century Fox, was not going to let this one go by quietly. He had been seeing comments on Twitter about the all-white cast.

    So Murdoch took to Twitter to defend his investment.

    As expected, his odd defense did not sit well.

    So Murdoch hit back again.

    But his detractors got the last laugh.

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