Saudi Arabia Audiences Grow as Local Comedies Succeed
variety.comNick Vivarelli International CorrespondentMoviegoing in Saudi Arabia has come a long way since April 18, 2018, when “Black Panther” premiered to a packed crowd in a converted symphony hall in Riyadh, ending the country’s 35-year ban on public screenings prompted by an ultraconservative Islamic wave that started in the 1980s.Cut to three-and-a-half years after the “Panther” premiere — at which men and women sat together as they watched the Marvel superhero — and when it comes to watching movies on the big screen “things have evolved on different levels,” says Carlo Vincenti, head of Italia Film, which is Disney’s distributor in the region.Today there are 57 state-of-the-art cinema sites in 16 Saudi cities for a total of more than 500 screens.
Admissions have soared from 149,000 from just two venues in 2018 to more than 13 million tickets sold at 53 different locations in 2021.
Box office in 2021 was $238 million for the year, a 95% increase compared with 2020. Expectations are that Saudi will become a $1 billion market in a matter of a few years. “The growth on the exhibitor’s side — despite a lockdown in its midst — has been phenomenal,” notes Vincenti, who points out that the next step in the kingdom’s moviegoing evolution is that “cinemas are now being built in remote areas and cities with a population of less than one million.”In terms of movie consumption, initially it was just Hollywood studio fare being shown, with distributors throwing everything out there to see what would stick.
But now there is a real slate of film offerings in Saudi Arabia and a burgeoning arthouse scene, and a shift underway from Hollywood product to locally produced titles.While Hollywood films topped the Saudi box office chart in 2018,.
Read more on variety.com
