Saudi Arabia Chases Star-Studded $64 Billion Hollywood Dream - Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia’s decades-long ban on cinemas only ended in 2018, but the desert kingdom already has Hollywood ambitions.
It’s investing $64 billion in its nascent entertainment industry as part of a broader effort to wean the economy off oil and transform itself into the Middle East’s premier movie hub.
The action flick ‘Desert Warrior’, starring Anthony Mackie (Marvel’s new Captain America), is being filmed entirely in Saudi Arabia, and Gerard Butler’s latest thriller ‘Kandahar’ is starting principal photography in the Al-Ula region this month -- a first for the UNESCO World Heritage Site opened last year as part of Saudi Arabia’s related push to introduce tourism.
“We’ve started from the beginning, no one was here before, and we have high ambitions to build up Al-Ula as an international film destination,“ said Stephen Strachan, film commissioner for the unspoilt region that boasts majestic pre-Islamic ruins neglected under decades of religious rule.
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