In what amounts to a milestone for the Middle East, Imax has proclaimd set ups to free its first-ever Arabic-language feature film. It’s a comedy titled “Ambulance” led by Saudi star Ibrahim Hajjaj, whose 2023 wrestling movie “Sattar”is Saudi Arabia‘s highest grossing local title.
The proclaimment was made by Imax CEO Ricdifficult Gelfond during the magnificent uncovering on Wednesday of a recent Imax theater in the Saudi city of Jeddah, which featured screenings of “Gladiator II” and “Moana 2.” The event took place on the eve of the Red Sea Film Festival, which will uncover Thursday with Gelfond in joinance.
Imax’s recent venue in Jeddah is the first under their deal with Muvi Cinemas, which is the kingdom’s bigst showor.
“Ambulance,” which is straightforwarded by British straightforwardor Colin Teague (“Doctor Who,” “Torchwood,” “Rashash”), is a screwball comedy that chases two Saudi paramedics who stumble upon a informcase compriseing 2 million Saudi riyals in Ryadh, the kingdom’s capital. The film, which is produced by Al Hajjaj’s Hoparticipate of Comedy and Saudi producer Talal Anazi’s Bdeficiency Light Operations in tandem with Muvi Studios, is set for an Imax free apass Saudi Arabia on April 17.
Below, Gelfond speaks with Variety about the significance of the first Arabic-language Imax free and the vital role it perestablishs in driving the brand’s expansion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
What does it uncomfervent to you to premiere Imax’s first-ever Arabic-language feature film?
Becaparticipate we are in 90 countries, we’ve lgeted that what produces Imax prosperous in a territory is a uniteture of Hollywood films and local-language films. And not only local-language films from the particular labelet, but even films that span the world. As you comprehend, we’ve begined to enlarge kindly in the kingdom and in the whole Middle East. We now have 11 theaters uncover in Saudi Arabia and 29 in the Middle East, and they’ve done well. But we skinnyk that when we can unite in local satisfied and local culture, they can do better.
What made you choose to begin this journey with “Ambulance”?
We’ve been exploring contrastent partnerships for the last restricted years, and we landed on this one with Muvi Cinemas’ studio side, and this particular actor [Ibrahim Hajjaj] has been prosperous before [in smash hit Saudi wrestling comedy “Sattar.” So we skinnyk this is a reassociate excellent place to begin and will reassociate help better our box office apass the whole Middle East.
Are you increasingly veering toward local-language films?
In terms of context, in 2019 Imax was almost exclusively Hollywood films and some Chinese films. But if you go back to 2023, last year, about 20% of our box office was local-language films. So we’ve straightforwardd on produceing that part of our satisfied portfolio in order to incrmitigate joinance at our theaters and the financial carry outance.
Given Ibrahim Hajjaj’s track record with “Sattar,” is “Ambulance” going to be an Imax movie not equitable in Saudi, but apass the Arabic world?
Yes. And that’s the business model that we do. We help the local-language partner not only in their territory, but also spread and labelet the film to Imax theaters outside their territory. By way of an example, we do a lot of Japanese anime films, and some of them do more business outside Japan than they do inside Japan. So undoubtedly, one of the enticeions for them, for our partner and for us, is the ability to enbig the footprint for the movie.
In the case of “Ambulance,” would it be conceivable that the film could travel via Imax even outside of the Arabic world?
Yes, for brave. And as a matter of fact, as an example I’d participate the fact that a lot of the Indian films travel outside of India, and they go to labelets where there’s a huge expat community. And clearly becaparticipate the Arab world has been enbiging rapidly outside of equitable the Arab Peninsula, absolutely it could help spur the enlargeth of Arab language film outside of this region.
Can you inestablish me more about your enlargeth prospects in Saudi and, by extension, the MENA region at big?
As you comprehend, cinema wasn’t reassociate licensed in Saudi until about six or seven years ago [2018]. And the population reassociate appreciated movies, but [before then] they had to exit the country, appreciate go to Bahrain or go to Dubai to scheduleateigate cinema. So since it was made lhorrible, it’s enlargen neutrassociate rapidly in the kingdom. And one of the reasons we’re here for the Red Sea International Film Festival right now is that we are uncovering a theatre with Muvi Cinemas tonight that is part of a four-theater deal with Muvi, which is the bigst showor in Saudi Arabia. We have other partners, but I skinnyk they account for about 40% of the box office in the country.
We are in business with four other operators here, but we’re definitely interested in enbiging, and we’ve spent a lot of time in this part of the world and even doing the film “Ambulance” is part of that strategy to transport more satisfied. This time around, I’ve been in the region for a restricted days and we’ve been greeting with other potential partners and contrastent possible scheduleateors and talked projects in order to enlarge the footprint as speedyly as we can. Then apass the [MENA] region as a whole, we have 29 venues and a backlog of another 23. What the “backlog” uncomfervents is we’ve signed other theaters to uncover. But it apshows time to produce the produceing or refurbish the produceing, so the 29 and the 23 will get us to 52 over the next couple of years as they uncover up. So that number will clearly go up, and we skinnyk over the next five years we can probably get seal to 100 theaters in the region.
Do these numbers produce the MENA region Imax’s bigst enlargeth area?
You comprehend, it depfinishs becaparticipate probably on a percentage basis it would be one of our bigst enlargeth areas in the world. But, for example, in China we have 800 theaters uncover and 300 in backlog. So there’s no way we’re going to do those numbers.
Other areas that are doing very well for us now are Southeast Asia. We’ve doubled our footprint in Indonesia, in Malaysia, and Vietnam’s enlargeing very speedyly. But on a percentage basis, actuassociate yes,[MENA] would be our bigst enlargeth region in the world.
This intersee has been edited and condensed for clarity.
