Sony’s The Interview has made headlines for creating an international dispute with North Korea, and now a second December release American film is being banned in another country. According to the Egyptian cultural minister, Exodus: Gods and Kings won’t be shown in Egypt because it asserts historical falsehoods and spreads a “Zionist view.”

The $140 million Hollywood film stars Christian Bale as Moses and centers on the biblical escape of the Jews from Egypt. The film first faced publicity and image problems for having a primarily white cast, with Joel Edgerton portraying the pharaoh Ramses and Sigourney Weaver playing Queen Tuya alongside Bale’s Moses. Director Ridley Scott tried to defend his casting decisions in an interview with Variety last month by explaining they were made for financial purposes.

“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,” said Scott. “I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”

Now, Arab countries are expressing outrage over the film’s false portrayal of Moses and of the film’s claims that the Jews built Egypt’s pyramids.

“[Exodus] gives a Zionist view of history and contains historical inaccuracies and that’s why we have decided to ban it,” Egypt’s culture minister, Gaber Asfour, told Agence France-Presse.

Mohamed Abu Seada, a senior official in the Egyptian Culture Ministry, denies that he has heard anything about the Exodus ban, so the decision has not yet confirmed. However, it would not be the first time Egypt chose to ban a film about Moses; the country banned the DreamWorks animated film The Prince of Egypt in 1998. Should Egypt choose to officially ban Exodus, it will become the second Arab country this week to refuse to distribute the 20th Century Fox film. Even though the state-run Moroccan Cinema Centre had given the film the green light, the Moroccan government barred its distribution in theaters on Christmas right when it was about to be shown.

Exodus: Gods and Kings only took in $24.5 million on its debut weekend, falling significantly short of other similar modern Biblical films. Darren Aronofsky’s Noah earned $43.7 million on its opening weekend in March, and 2004’s The Passion of the Christ took in $83.3 million.