Saudi Arabia: MBS wants Hollywood's help to grow local film industry

By Brandon Mioduszewski and Christine Burke

At the end of a meandering desert road, between cliffs streaked with red hues and burnt orange sand, sits a pristine, state-of-the art film studio, awaiting its first production.
 

Located in the outskirts of AlUla, a city in northwest Saudi Arabia built more than 2,000 years ago along the Silk Road, the facility is as untouched as the landscapes around it. 

But hopefully not for long. As part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan to diversify the desert kingdom’s wealth, AlUla Studios aims to open later this year and anchor a home-grown film industry that’s part of a broader plan to boost economic growth, technological innovation and tourism.

On one side of the AlUla Valley, green-tinted mountains evoke an extraterrestrial existence. On another, ridges of volcanic rock are sprinkled with golden sand and shrub. And at the foot of towering red cliffs, the desert sprawls. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Hegra is nearby.

AlUla Studio’s placement at the center of such sweeping vistas is strategic, designed to offer filmmakers “the perfect backdrop for a wide range of filming,” combined with a Hollywood-grade studio — two 25,000-square foot sound stages, a recording studio, warehouses and a full suite of production support spaces, according to Film AlUla, an agency established by the government’s Royal Commission for AlUla.  

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lifted a ban on cinemas in 2018 as the first step to setting Saudi Arabia’s film industry in motion and trying to turn the kingdom into a Middle Eastern movie hub. Then came the Red Sea International Film Foundation, whose mission is to showcase the diversity and dynamism of Arab, African and Asian cinema and create a sustainable film ecosystem. The Foundation also sponsors a film festival and an associated fund offering $15 million for productions shot by African or Arab directors.

To woo Hollywood and other international filmmakers, the oil rich Gulf nation has also introduced generous incentives, including a 40 per cent cash rebate. It launched the $100 million Saudi Film Fund in February to promote collaboration with global studios.

Beyond attracting foreign producers, Saudi Arabia is hoping to plant the roots of its own industry, reflecting its values and traditions and helping to foster a society where citizens can pursue their creative passions. The kingdom’s success — and biggest challenge — now depends on its ability to draw in experienced outsiders that can nurture local talent and show the industry how to scale up.

“The country is focused on building a bedrock of local filmmakers, but that has to be augmented by having a strong international industry coming to shoot there,” said Stuart Sutherland, chief executive officer of Celtic Arabia, which organized Saudi production on the 2023 film Kandahar.  Produced by California-based Thunder Road Films, the action-thriller film is one of only a handful of major Hollywood productions to have been filmed in the kingdom in recent years. “The transfer of knowledge is immeasurably important,” Sutherland said.   

But foreign production teams must also navigate Saudi Arabia’s cultural and political restrictions, which sometimes collide with the Crown Prince’s efforts to open up the country more socially. Film scripts, for example, must be approved by media authorities. Earlier this year, a Saudi-American who headed an animation studio in Saudi Arabia and had a five-year deal with Netflix, was reportedly sentenced to 13 years in prison on accusations of promoting extremism through his cartoon series and social media posts. The story of Abdulaziz Almuzaini was shocking to many observers because he had earlier been lauded as one of the rising stars in the local entertainment industry.  

Hollywood has been tiptoeing into Saudi Arabia in the past few years, using the stunning scenery to great effect in films such as Kandahar and Cherry,  an Apple Original Film starring Tom Holland as a war veteran, that was shot on location in AlUla and released in 2021. But both of those films were finished elsewhere, a detail the kingdom hopes to overcome as it increases local infrastructure and savoir-faire.

The Saudi film industry is “on the cusp of a major transformation, driven by strategic investments in infrastructure, talent development, and international collaboration,” said Zaid Shaker, acting executive director of Film AlUla.  And for Hollywood and other international projects, “creating links with Saudi Arabia will result in more interesting projects creatively, and also provide a showcase for our region on a global stage.”

Since 2020, AlUla has been home to five feature films, 35 TV series, 33 documentaries, and 55 commercials or promos for popular shows such as House of the Dragon and Stranger Things, according to Film AlUla. In 2023 alone, 123 projects were shot in the city, ranging from feature-length films, scripted and reality series to commercials, documentaries and music videos. In Saudi Arabia more broadly, there have been screenings and releases of more than 14 local films in 2024, up from 10 released in 2023, according to the Red Sea Film Foundation.

When AlUla Studios opens, it may be Greg Silverman, a former Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. executive who worked on Harry Potter and Joker, who first takes to the sound stage. His production company, Stampede Ventures, signed a $350 million deal with Film AlUla in 2023 for 10 projects to be made over three years. The first installment, the directorial debut by Anderson .Paak, is K-POPS!, which was shot at various locations including AlUla and will premier at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Saudi Arabia’s subsidies have been key in jump-starting global interest and forging connections with Hollywood. 

“When Saudi Arabia took the initiative to help fund film production, it took the market to another level,” said Frederic Ephrem, executive director at The Film House, which has shot one feature film, The Cello, in the kingdom. “There are big, big incentives.”

Actress-producer Daya Fernandez — known for her work on films like Minority Report and Vanilla Sky — teamed up with Saudi billionaire Sheikh Mohammed Youssef El Khereiji to launch 3SIX9 Studios this summer and plans to tap the kingdom’s incentives for future projects. The company is based in Jeddah and has offices in Los Angeles, New York and London. 

“Our goal is to not only be a film studio that brings Hollywood productions, but also use local studios and facilities to build up the talent,” said Fernandez, who is currently working on action-comedy film Bunny Run in cooperation with Saudi crews. “There’s a lot of momentum.”

Saudi Arabia has made film a key pillar of its broader strategy to turn the local entertainment sector into a source of revenue that will contribute $23 billion to the economy by 2030. The country is spending billions on video gaming and is investing heavily in sports like soccer and golf. Box office ticket sales alone have generated almost $1 billion in cumulative revenue since 2018. Strategy management firm PwC projects that may be close to what is brought in annually by 2030.

With just over 32 million people — about 63 per cent of whom are under the age of 30 — Saudi Arabia is one of the top markets for local-language content in the Middle East. There is a significant appetite for cinema, but not just US films. Increasingly, Saudi-based narratives are resonating with audiences and inspiring a movement into film as a career.

Saudi native Aymen Khoja recently launched Aymen Khoja Pictures with the goal of capturing that momentum. His company produced its first Saudi feature film, comedy Il Signore — which released to local theaters in early August — and is now working with Muvi Studios to deliver three more productions, Khoja said.

At the heart of Khoja’s mission is training local talent — something he said many foreign producers are still reluctant to do given the extra time and attention it can require during filming.

“The easy thing to do is to bring in an American producer or Egyptian producer. The challenge is bringing a Saudi and empowering him with everything he needs,” said Khoja, who studied at the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles and worked on the movie Rupture, which won best Saudi feature film at the Red Sea International Film Festival in 2021. “No one wants to take the challenge. They want the easy way.”

Saudi Arabia also needs more time to develop the necessary infrastructure for major productions, Khoja said, specifically pointing to things like equipment insurance and completion bonds.  Having enough hotel space and proper electricity infrastructure for filming could be issues, too. 

“If we let this industry grow, then step by step in two or three years, we may have a more mature industry that has Hollywood saying okay, there’s infrastructure I can build on. I can work with that,” Khoja said. 

Brendon Boyea, who formerly worked at Thunder Road Films co-producing Kandahar  with Sutherland’s company and others, also noticed infrastructural challenges throughout the production process. 

“It’s really hard to go film somewhere when you have to bring everything in,” Boyea said. “For Hollywood, going to a place without a ton of infrastructure is very challenging. Even if the incentives are good, there’s an offset.”

The lack of experience among local Saudi crews was an additional hurdle, according to Boyea. “Because the infrastructure didn’t really exist yet, there were a lot of people there who were very willing and capable but didn’t have the experience,” Boyea said. As a result, Thunder Road brought in many international crew members to smooth the process. Roughly 220 out of about 300 crew members were foreigners, he estimated.

“It was a bigger production, we needed more experience.” 

Still, the financial grab-bag and potential for growth is capturing global attention.

Last year’s Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah featured appearances from major Hollywood stars including Chris Hemsworth, Johnny Depp and Halle Berry.

Riyadh also hosted its first Hollywood premiere in May, featuring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, who were there to promote their action-comedy film Bad Boys: Ride or Die. The movie went on to be the highest grossing of all-time in Saudi Arabia, according to Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In May, the feature film Norah — filmed entirely in the city of AlUla — was the first Saudi film to ever screen at the Cannes Film Festival, a landmark event for the country and broader industry.   

The movie, which explores artistic repression in 1990s Saudi Arabia, was backed by the Red Sea Fund, had an all-Saudi cast and featured a crew that was 40 per cent local.

Celtic Arabia’s Sutherland said Saudi Arabia’s film industry may take longer to take off than some other forms of entertainment, like video gaming or sports, but he isn’t worried. 

“The journey of putting a movie together relies on more moving parts than buying a football player and putting him on a soccer team, or doing a Pharrell Williams concert in a stadium,” Sutherland said.  “One can be picked up and placed down, and the other needs to be nurtured and grown.”