As part of his attempts to boost his image worldwide, the Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) is looking to invest billions of dollars into Hollywood movies and entertainment.
Well-trusted sources revealed that MBS is aiming to turn Saudi Arabia into another China for Hollywood.
It has already spent billions of dollars to stand up a new golf league, invested billions more into video-game publishers and is now turning its attention to Hollywood, the sources said.
The presence of famous people on Saudi soil at a film festival lends credibility to those efforts — even if the organizers didn’t get all the biggest stars to show up.
The country is also offering generous incentives to filmmakers and studios if they shoot there and these incentives have already enticed a couple of productions, including a film starring Anthony Mackie.
Saudi Arabia’s Cultural Development Fund is poised to launch a new $233m ($879m Saudi Riyal) film industry financing program in the first quarter of 2023, which will be open to both local and international entities.
The new fund joins a raft of initiatives introduced by the Saudi Arabian government to support the building of a film and TV sector in the wake of the lifting of the country’s 35-cinema ban at the end of 2017.
According to the sources, the move was part of a wider strategy to open up the country and move its economy away from a reliance on oil. Other key supports include a 40% rebate for production.
Saudi Crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS)’s Vision 2030 prides itself on offering “world-class entertainment” and says that it has organized up to 3,800 entertainment events in the country, attended by more than 80 million people.
Saudi Arabia established the General Entertainment Authority in tandem with Vision 2030 – the crown prince’s plan to diversify its economy beyond oil, which accounts for more than half of the government’s revenue. Among its goals was to almost double household spending on cultural and entertainment activities within the kingdom.
Riyadh is now seeing more than $64 billion in entertainment investment, with a significant proportion of that going to the live music industry.
MBS was widely named as the “Gamer Prince” after hosting the international eSport gamers forum “Next World” this month.
Much like with Formula One and professional golf, the world’s biggest oil exporter has in recent years leveraged its immense wealth to assert itself on the eSports stage, hosting glitzy conferences and snapping up established tournament organisers, the report said.
In January, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund launched the Savvy Gaming Group, which acquired top eSports firms ESL Gaming and FACEIT in deals reportedly worth a total of $1.5 billion.
The shocking reports on MBS’s huge spending on film making have drowned sharp criticism among Saudis.
