Saudi Arabian-backed $150 million blockbuster, ‘Desert Warrior’, majorly flops at box office
The Saudi Arabian-backed blockbuster, Desert Warrior, has become one of the biggest flops in box office history.
The film, directed by Planet of the Apes’ Rupert Wyatt, stars Anthony Mackie, Ben Kingsley and Aiysha Hart, and cost $150 million to produce.
After being announced in 2021, it finally arrived on cinema screens last week in North America, but despite costing a fortune to make, it only made $487,848.
It was shown in 1,000 screens across the continent, which works out at taking just $483 at each screen it was made available to watch.
Although filming wrapped up in 2022, it has taken a long four-year process to get it ready to the screen. In 2024, Deadline previously reported that the post-production process was plagued with difficulties, which saw Wyatt walk away due to creative differences during editing before later returning.
In the same Deadline piece, producer Jeremy Holt admitted, “The film was very challenging to make, the hardest of my career.”
He added of the filming process in Neom: “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 film, produced by the Riyadh-based MBC Studios, is the most high-profile to come out of Saudi Arabia yet, but the box office results in North America show that the movie industry is an incredibly difficult market to crack.
Per Rotten Tomatoes, the synopsis for Desert Warrior reads, “Defying a ruthless emperor, a princess flees into the Arabian desert, hunted by mercenaries. Forged into a warrior and aided by a legendary bandit, she unites warring tribes for a last stand that will change history.”
As it stands, no UK release date has been confirmed for Desert Warrior.
Saudi Arabia, which this week cut funding to LIV Golf after investing billions of dollars into competing with the PGA, appears undeterred by the failure of Desert Warrior and still has its eyes on rivalling Hollywood as part of its Saudi Vision 2030 scheme.
New projects in the works include Unbroken Sword by Game of Thrones director Alik Sakharov, but whether it fares any better with viewers remains to be seen.
Never Miss A Scene
The Far Out Film Newsletter
All the latest film news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.