After achieving tremendous critical acclaim and the number one spot at the box office last weekend, Ridley Scott's The Martian starring Matt Damon has now come under heavy fire for allegedly "whitewashing" several characters who were originally billed as Asian in the 2014 novel by Andy Weir.

The Media Action Network For Asian-Americans (MANAA), a watchdog group focused on pushing positive portrayals of Asian-Americans in media, released a statement Thursday that roundly criticized British-born director Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner) for actively excluding Asian-Americans from the film.

"This was a great opportunity to give meaty roles to talented Asian American actors — and boost their careers — which would’ve enabled our community," MANAA President Guy Aoki said. "This feel-good movie, which has attracted Oscar buzz, shouldn’t get any awards for casting."

"Was the director afraid that having too many Asian American characters would prevent 20th Century Fox from approving his casting, or that it would be a turn-off to the audience? It didn’t stop the book from becoming a best-seller," Aoki added.

In Weir's book, the character of Dr. Venkat Kapoor was identified as an Asian-Indian practitioner of Hindu, but in the film, his name had been changed to Dr. Vincent Kapoor and was played by British black actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, who says his father was Hindu while his mother was a baptist.

The character of Mindy Park, identified in Weir's book as Korean-American, was played by Caucasian actress Mackenzie Davis. MANAA did not like that too much.

Ridley Scott treaded these waters last year with his dud biblical epic Exodus: Gods and Kings for casting white actors Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton to play Egyptian princes.