A $200 million ancient epic that courted controversy on its way to box office disaster leads a rebellion on streaming

Ridley Scott may have kicked off the boom for historical epics after steering Gladiator to massive critical, commercial, and awards season success, but his subsequent returns to the genre yielded diminished returns, with Exodus: Gods and Kings ranking at the bottom of the pile.

The Kingdom of Heaven Director’s Cut elevates the muddled theatrical release into one of the genre’s most underrated greats, but his lavish Robin Hood was as banal as they come, while The Last Duel found plenty of acclaim – but ended with the filmmaker blaming those damned millennials and their cellphones for its dismal box office performance.

Gods and Kings was always facing an uphill battle, though, with the big budget biblical blockbuster coming under fire for whitewashing the majority of its major roles, leading to calls for a boycott. Ever the ray of sunshine, Scott urged those lambasting the film to “get a life,” which they presumably did; just not by catching it on the big screen.

With an estimated price tag of $200 million, Gods and Kings limped to a miserable $238 million in ticket sales and found itself saddled with an equally miserly 30 percent Rotten Tomatoes score. Thankfully, we’ve been conditioned to expect any sweeping tale of ancient conflict returning to prominence on streaming, and it’s only gone and happened again.

Per FlixPatrol, Exodus: Gods and Kings has led a rebellion right onto the HBO Max Top 10, where it can be found as the third most-watched movie among customers in the United States. It’s far from Scott’s best, but it’s clearly doing the job for a lot of viewers.