Why the Saudis’ ‘Hollywood in the desert’ is becoming a mirage

Director Ric Roman Waugh on the Saudi set of the 2023 Gerard Butler film Kandahar
Director Ric Roman Waugh on the Saudi set of the 2023 Gerard Butler film Kandahar - Alamy

Over the past decades, various countries have attempted to shake free from the shackles of Hollywood dominance in cinema and produce their own home-grown film industries. India has Bollywood, Nigeria the rather less well-known Nollywood, and the likes of China, Russia and Japan all have thriving businesses that are aimed almost exclusively at their domestic populations, with only the occasional crossover picture coming into any kind of international focus.

Yet it seems more surprising that the Middle East has, traditionally, been used more as an exotic location for the filming of big-budget Western epics than having its own dedicated studios and thriving industry. Surely, with the sheer amount of money floating about its nations through oil and other capitalist ventures, this could be remedied?

In the case of one of the wealthiest Arab states, Saudi Arabia, apparent progress has already begun. The nation’s ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is said to be a great film buff, and has made it clear that he would like the country to make lucrative and successful pictures that will take on Hollywood at its own game. To this end, the country’s Saudi Film Commission has sought to undercut its neighbours Egypt and Morocco by offering considerable incentives to filmmakers: a 40 per cent rebate on expenditure solely committed to the area, as opposed to the industry standard of 30 per cent.

The forthcoming historical epic Desert Warrior is the biggest Saudi production yet
The forthcoming historical epic Desert Warrior is the biggest Saudi production yet

And while Tom Cruise may have put Dubai’s Burj Khalifa on the map when he scaled its dizzy heights in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, its neighbour has altogether grander ambitions for its nascent film industry. A hugely expensive dedicated studio complex has been built outside the oasis city of al-Ula, which has been designed not just to rival Hollywood soundstages, but to better them. As one construction worker told the Financial Times: “This is better than the international standard. If you spend $160 million on a film, you can’t risk that the studio doesn’t work.”

If a Saudi Arabian film industry can emerge from nothing, then it will be an impressive achievement indeed. As film attendance declines in Western cinemas, moguls worldwide are looking for ways in which hitherto untapped sources of finance can be brought into play. (It is widely rumoured that the only way Kevin Costner was able to fund his Horizon films was by tapping up some particularly well-heeled oil billionaires who liked the idea of being in the movie business.) Just as it was once believed that Chinese money was the future of American film – leading to laughable contrivances in which Hollywood blockbusters would feature crowbarred scenes with popular Chinese film stars to please the lucrative market – so Hollywood will be looking at what’s happening in the Middle East with enormous interest.

Still, despite all the hype and excitement, there are risks and drawbacks. The desert might be a wonderfully picturesque place to shoot, but it also comes with its own difficulties; a lack of infrastructure, extreme heat and the lingering suspicion that many external studios have about too closely involving themselves with a regime which, for all the apparent support that it offers Western production companies, is still associated with shadowy and outright illegal activity. The 2018 murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the country’s embassy in Istanbul, which the US concluded took place with Prince Mohammed’s explicit approval, has neither been forgotten nor forgiven.

Therefore, if foreign investment in the country’s film industry is going to be limited, then the necessity of coming up with their own big-budget pictures is all the more pressing. Although the country has invested in several non-Arab productions, such as the Johnny Depp comeback picture Jeanne du Barry, its local ambitions are altogether greater.

That stalwart of the modern-day B-movie, Gerard Butler, filmed the action picture Kandahar in the country a couple of years ago – the first English-language film to be shot in the cities of al-Ula and Jeddah - and it was co-financed by the Saudi media conglomerate the MBC Group. Although it was critically and commercially unsuccessful - a typical review stated that it was “a typically Butler mindless, obscenely violent action film without a soul” – it nonetheless established a precedent that other pictures might follow.

'On paper, Saudi's filmgoers are not so very different from those around the world'
‘On paper, Saudi’s filmgoers are not so very different from those around the world’ - AFP

On paper, Saudi’s filmgoers are not so very different from those around the world. Last year, Oppenheimer and Mission: Impossible were two of the three most successful films at the country’s box office (unsurprisingly, Barbie didn’t get much of a look in) and the other, a wrestling comedy called Sattar, was an enormously popular home-grown success that outgrossed the likes of The Batman and Joker to become the country’s eighth-highest-grossing picture, earning $10.8 million in Saudi cinemas.

Yet the ideal, for filmmakers and financiers alike, would be to make a domestically funded picture that could compete with Hollywood for spectacle, acclaim and, crucially, grosses. After all, these expensive studio complexes are not going to pay for themselves.

MBC clearly thought that its best shot at a big mainstream picture was Desert Warrior, an epic film directed by Rise of the Planet of the Apes’s Rupert Wyatt, starring the new Captain America Anthony Mackie and with the English actress Aiysha Hart as the female lead. Perhaps predictably, Ben Kingsley was cast as the villainous emperor Kisra, who wishes to make Hart’s princess his concubine. She refuses and, allying herself with Mackie’s soldier-of-fortune (named Bandit, just to give audiences a clear idea of his character profile), they attempt to unite disparate tribes in order to gear up for an epic showdown with the evil potentate.

The picture was announced in 2021 and became the highest-profile Saudi production ever made. With an enormous budget – which began at $140 million and has climbed inexorably higher with reshoots and changes – it was vital that Desert Warrior should be a big hit, and so its financiers took a close interest in the film’s production.

With a script co-written by the Hunger Games’ Gary Ross and Road to Perdition’s David Self, it should have been a slam-dunk success, but unfortunately it swiftly became clear that there would be tensions between a conventional Hollywood approach to the subject matter and local concerns. A well-sourced report in Deadline observed that a scene in which another woman touches Hart’s character in a platonic but intimate way on her neck was something that the film’s backers were particularly unenamoured by.

Likewise, although there has been a considerable amount of money spent on these new soundstages, the desert is still a difficult environment in which to film. As the film’s producer Jeremy Bolt commented, “The film was very challenging to make, the hardest of my career. We were shooting a battle-orientated period epic in beautiful but harsh desert locations. There was nothing there: no infrastructure, no crew, and no equipment. We had to bring everything in and often from other countries. The effort from the director, cast, and crew was herculean.” He might have saved time by suggesting that, for all MBC’s ambitions, the dream of making home-grown epics is simply not there yet.

Kevin Costner attending the Joy Awards in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in January
Kevin Costner attending the Joy Awards in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in January

MBC told Deadline that it holds “great pride and enthusiasm” for Desert Warrior and the movie will “soon be ready” for release. “The innovative storytelling techniques, riveting performances, and meticulous attention to detail promise a unique and memorable cinematic journey. We have high confidence that Desert Warrior will exceed expectations and offer a viewing experience unlike any other.” Wyatt declined to comment.

Wyatt himself, whose last film was the unsuccessful 2019 sci-fi picture Captive State, is said to have walked away from post-production in frustration at the financiers’ meddling and has had to be coaxed back into finishing it. His original cut was said to have been an intelligent epic of two and a half hours, and this has now been transformed into a more conventional action picture by the editor Kelley Dixon, running at less than two hours.

It has also been suggested that the film’s producers are considering employing Morgan Freeman to deliver a voice-of-God-style narration, both to cover up any cracks in the storyline and because the actor is said to be a great favourite of Bin Salman. At least one observer has remarked that, while the film needs to be a box office success in order to encourage further investment in the area, the country’s powerful ruler is less concerned with finances and more with making sure that no artistic or cultural liberties are taken.

Film buff: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Film buff: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - Nathan Howard

The film is currently in limbo, and although Mackie’s starring role in next year’s Captain America: Brave New World will undoubtedly raise his profile higher and make him an even more bankable lead, it is not known which cut of the film will be released, or when. And certainly, at a time of severe international tensions, audiences may not want to flock to a film dealing with Middle Eastern conflicts for their evening’s entertainment. As one anonymous studio executive remarked to Deadline, it feels “a bit too soon after October 7 for a movie involving rampaging Arab tribes.”

Still, whether or not Desert Warrior ends up being a considerable international hit or a forgotten afterthought more notable for its troubled production than anything on-screen, it is undeniably true that Saudi Arabia is not a country in which matters of national gravity are treated in laissez-faire fashion.

Given how closely bin Salman has associated himself with his country’s emergent film industry, there will be a lot of people who will be extremely keen to keep him happy, and will do everything that they can to ensure that the films that emerge from the country are up to his exacting standards. Otherwise – to coin a phrase – heads will roll.