Anthony Mackie's $150 Million, Saudi-Funded Action Movie Desert Warrior Looks Like One of the Biggest Box Office Flops in History

It’s an epic movie with a immense $150 cardinal fund and stars Captain America himself, Anthony Mackie alongside Oscar victor Ben Kingsley, but you’d beryllium forgiven for having nary thought it adjacent exists, fto unsocial looks acceptable to go 1 of the biggest container bureau flops of each time.

Desert Warrior, backed and funded by Saudi Arabia arsenic a benignant of modern time reply to Lawrence of Arabia, opened successful 1,010 North American theaters this play to a debut of conscionable $472,111. That makes for a Per-Theater Average (PTA) of an astonishingly debased $467. It’s the worst home opening for a large movie this twelvemonth and 1 of the worst successful past — not the instrumentality you’d expect from the latest blockbuster directed by Rupert Wyatt, who reinvigorated 20th Century’s Planet of the Apes franchise.

Here’s the authoritative blurb:

Set successful seventh-century Arabia, Princess Hind (Aiysha Hart) defies her fate, refusing to go a concubine to the ruthless Emperor Kisra (Kingsley). Fleeing into the godforsaken with her father, she is hunted by a merciless service and forced to spot a legendary bandit (Mackie) with secrets of his own. Rising from fugitive to fearless warrior, Hind unites warring tribes for a last basal — the Battle of Dhi Qar, a clash that volition alteration past forever.

From a Saudi constituent of view, the intent with Desert Warrior is clear: kickstart Saudi Arabia’s expensively funded movie manufacture and amusement disconnected the state successful a affirmative airy to a occidental audience. But Desert Warrior was met with scathing reviews from critics and hardly a whiff of involvement from cinemagoers. Desert Warrior has a 25% standing connected Rotten Tomatoes’ Tomatometer, and an IMDb standing of conscionable 2.1/10. The Hollywood Reporter reviewer Frank Scheck called it “an elaborate slog of a Saudi epic,” portion The New York Times’ Glenn Kenny praised its accumulation value, saying “there are horses and camels moving around, elaborate costumes and sets, and an expansive formed from Europe, Africa, the United States and the Middle East.”

The question is, volition we proceed to spot costly films aimed astatine the westbound travel retired of Saudi Arabia, present Desert Warrior has flopped truthful hard? According to The Daily Telegraph, Desert Warrior was funded by MBC studios, an offshoot of Saudi’s biggest broadcaster, MBC, whose bulk shareholder is the nation’s ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Crown Prince “is said to beryllium a movie buff who wants to instrumentality connected Hollywood astatine its ain game,” the Telegraph reported, truthful possibly he'll instrumentality with the program for now.

Maybe Desert Warrior’s destiny was sealed earlier it adjacent came out. It reportedly suffered a brutally hard production, was pulled this mode and that by the assorted stakeholders involved, and nary of its stars promoted the movie up of launch. Perhaps Anthony Mackie was excessively engaged with Avengers: Doomsday?

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].