Oliver Stone laments 'Alexander the gay'

Hollywood director Oliver Stone is lamenting the poor box-office performance of his latest film "Alexander," citing the homosexuality of the lead character as one of the detrimental factors.

Colin Farrell, right, stars as Alexander the Great, with Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer as his parents. (Courtesy Warner Bros.)

"I still think it's a beautiful movie, but Alexander deserves better than I gave him," Stone said, according to the London Telegraph. "There was clear resistance to his homosexuality. It became the headline to the movie. They called him Alexander the gay. That's horribly discriminatory, but the film simply didn't open in the Bible Belt."

Stone, who also directed films including "Nixon" and "JFK," said he should have sliced the length of his latest movie from three hours down to 2 and a half, "and taken out the homosexuality for the U.S. market and for countries sensitive to such things, like Korea or Greece."

"Kids weren't comfortable with men who hugged, a king who cries and expresses tenderness," he added.

"Alexander," which recounts the life and times of the famed Macedonian conqueror, has been unable to slay the public despite a $195 million budget and well-known stars including Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie and Val Kilmer.

The film has raked in $33.9 million in its sixth week, grossing just $41,000 on only 232 screens over the Christmas holiday weekend, translating into $177 per show.

As WorldNetDaily previously reported, reviews for the film have been harsh to say the least.

Reviewer Jeffery Westfoff of the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Ill., wrote "'Alexander' often seems a couple of heartbeats away from turning into a gay porno film."

Philip Wuntch of the Dallas Morning News said, "'Alexander' has aspirations of greatness, hoping to be christened an intellectual super-spectacle for brainy moviegoers. The sad truth is that it will probably numb more brain cells than it will stimulate."

Wuntch notes that in the film, "Alexander prefers the after-hours company of men, considering women to be necessary primarily for reproductive reasons. His true soul mate is boyhood companion Hephaistion [Jared Leto], to whom he says softly, 'I'm nothing without you.' They never exchange an onscreen kiss, but their eyes constantly caress each other."

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