If Desert Warrior was one of Saudi Arabia’s big cinema swings, then it looks to have been a swing and a miss, based on the movie’s early box office takings. Starring Captain America’s Anthony Mackie and Oscar winner Ben Kingsley, Desert Warrior endured a troubled five-year trek to the screen, but finally debuted in theaters last weekend across the U.S. and Middle East.
Set up at Riyadh media giant MBC Group and acquired by Vertical, the movie has suffered bruising headlines based on its performance in the U.S., where it had grossed $596,000 on 1,010 screens as of Thursday, and been billed as one of the biggest box office flops in history.
Vertical’s marketing has unsurprisingly spotlighted Mackie, Kingsley, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes director Rupert Wyatt’s spectacular shots of Saudi sands, but cinemagoers have ultimately not responded to Desert Warrior’s rallying cry, and it looks unlikely to recoup its $150M budget.
Not that expectations were ever that high. Those close to Desert Warrior were realistic about the movie’s appeal, particularly at a time when war is raging in the Middle East. There had been hopes Desert Warrior could crack $1M in America, but even so, it’s far from a disaster for Vertical.
Industry sources said it is unlikely that Vertical broke the bank for Desert Warrior, meaning a path to profit is entirely plausible for the distributor once all theatrical and home entertainment revenue is counted. Vertical is said to be particularly focused on premium video on demand, where it will hero Mackie in artwork following similar tactics with films like Elevation.
MBC did not respond to a request for comment. Vertical declined to comment.
Middle East Box Office
The box office picture is not much brighter in Middle Eastern markets, according to figures seen by Deadline. Desert Warrior grossed $87,000 from 6,100 admissions in Saudi Arabia over its opening weekend, making it the eighth-biggest title in the country.
Some of Saudi’s biggest hits in recent years performed more than ten times better than Desert Warrior. This includes Shabab Al Bomb, which grossed $1.24M in its opening weekend but benefited from being based on one of the most popular TV franchises in the Arab world.
Empire Entertainment, the Saudi distributor that handled Desert Warrior for MBC and looks after Sony releases in the territory, has had bigger hits this year, not least Project Hail Mary, which grossed $700,000 in its opening weekend.
As of Thursday in Saudi Arabia, Desert Warrior’s ticket sales totalled $110,000, per Comscore. In the UAE, this figure was $37,000, while across the Middle East, Desert Warrior has clocked up sales of just $225,000, though local sources said the film has not been heavily marketed.
Why Was ‘Desert Warrior’ Deserted?
MBC will surely have hoped for better from a project that was announced in a blaze of ambition, but did not have an easy journey to the screen amid creative differences with director Wyatt (who left the project and later returned), and a budget that grew with delays and a pick-up shoot in Saudi.
Timing has worked against the MBC. Cinemagoers don’t have the appetite for a film about a desert war in the middle of a literal desert war, one observer noted. MBC considered pushing Desert Warrior after Donald Trump bombed Iran, but the company was reluctant to delay again after years of false dawns.
Aiysha Hart in ‘Desert Warrior’
Others point to more fundamental creative issues with the film. A distribution source in the Middle East told Deadline that Desert Warrior has fallen between stalls, appealing to neither Arab nor Western audiences. “I’m not sure who it is targeting,” this person said. “It looks like another big-budget Hollywood film that just happens to have been filmed in Saudi.”
These questions were echoed after an unfinished version of Desert Warrior, which was not edited by Wyatt, underwent audience testing in July 2023, producing negative results. Sources told Deadline that the research led people on the film to question whether there was any demand for a Western interpretation of an Arab story. Lacklustre reviews (the title has a “rotten” 29% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes) only further compound these concerns.
For others, that Desert Warrior has even been released is a cause for celebration. There were times, between when the film was shot in 2021 and its period of post-production limbo, when crew members were openly speculating about it never seeing the light of day.
“There was definitely a fear among the filmmakers and talent that the thing had become such a white elephant that MBC would just bury it,” a source said. “It would have been easier for them to go straight to streaming, so MBC deserves credit for going the distance. They believed in what was good about the film, and it does some of the things they intended in showcasing what can be achieved on screen in the region.”
Deadline has reported that Desert Warrior’s box office return will not be the only measure of its success. We revealed that MBC executives discussed the importance of Mohammed bin Salman’s verdict and how this could impact the company’s future funding. Will the Saudi Crown Prince continue to sanction big swings, or will the regime retreat from movies, as it has done with sport?
Crew members will tell you: Desert Warrior‘s $150M didn’t just buy a movie, it bought a filmmaking infrastructure for Saudi Arabia. As the nation restructures its economy away from fossil fuels, there are those who believe that valuable lessons can be learned from Desert Warrior to support filmmaking endeavors in the future.
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