Desert Warrior, the new action film starring Anthony Mackie, Ben Kingsley, Sharlto Copley, and Aiysha Hart, is tracking to become one of the biggest box office flops of all time. The film is directed by Rupert Wyatt, and was distributed by MBC Studios, a Saudi media conglomerate and the largest media group in the Middle East and North Africa.
There was hope that the film, which follows a concubine escaping the clutches of an emperor and making an alliance with a desert bandit to take him down, could revitalise the Saudi film industry. However, looking at the figures it seems that a lot more tickets are needed to be sold to do that. Desert Warrior has currently earned just over $500,000 worldwide as per BoxOfficeMojo, on a budget of $150 million.
Considering most movies these days need to make around double their budget at the box office to break even, Desert Warrior is a long, long ways off getting into the green. It's unlikely that the film will stick around much longer, if we're honest. Saudi Arabia's media efforts can return to buying shares in successful companies and bringing the WWE around once every so often, as it seems its own movie industry could not create a hit. Desert Warrior, unfortunately looks just too generic, and also didn't impress critics, meaning it may have been doomed since it premiered at the Zurich Film Festival last year.