Matt Damon celebrated his 46th birthday by presenting a new trailer for the upcoming movie, The Great Wall, at Comic Con in New York.
The film, directed by House Of Flying Dagger‘s Zhang Yimou, was slated for whitewashing after its first trailer was released.
Amongst the critics was Fresh Off The Boat’s Constance Wu, who posted a rant on social media, including, “our heroes don’t look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Ghandi. Mandela”.
Can we all at least agree that hero-bias & “but it’s really hard to finance” are no longer excuses for racism? TRY pic.twitter.com/mvNet5PrtH
— Constance Wu (@ConstanceWu) July 29, 2016
Damon said, “it just felt very exciting to incorporate Chinese mythology into a big Hollywood sword-and-sandal epic. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”
The Goodwill Hunting star revealed footage of the upcoming fantasy epic showing him playing a soldier in ancient China battling evil monsters.
“Ultimately it’s a monster movie,” he told the audience at Madison Square Garden, “Monsters are attacking the Great Wall and we all defend it. It’s historical fantasy. I’d never really done that before.”
The Great Wall also stars Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe and Andy Lau.
The film is set to be released on 17 February 2017 in the USA.