Imax CEO Richard Gelfond on Launching the Company’s First Arabic Film and Expanding Its Footprint in Saudi Arabia and the MENA Region (EXCLUSIVE)
In what amounts to a milestone for the Middle East, Imax has announced plans to release 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 announcement was made by Imax CEO Richard Gelfond during the grand opening on Wednesday of a new 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 open Thursday with Gelfond in attendance.
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Imax’s new venue in Jeddah is the first under their deal with Muvi Cinemas, which is the kingdom’s largest exhibitor.
“Ambulance,” which is directed by British director Colin Teague (“Doctor Who,” “Torchwood,” “Rashash”), is a screwball comedy that follows two Saudi paramedics who stumble upon a briefcase containing 2 million Saudi riyals in Ryadh, the kingdom’s capital. The film, which is produced by Al Hajjaj’s House of Comedy and Saudi producer Talal Anazi’s Black Light Operations in tandem with Muvi Studios, is set for an Imax release across Saudi Arabia on April 17.
Below, Gelfond speaks with Variety about the significance of the first Arabic-language Imax release and the crucial role it plays in driving the brand’s expansion in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
What does it mean to you to premiere Imax’s first-ever Arabic-language feature film?
Because we are in 90 countries, we’ve learned that what makes Imax successful in a territory is a mixture of Hollywood films and local-language films. And not only local-language films from the specific market, but even films that span the world. As you know, we’ve started to grow nicely in the kingdom and in the whole Middle East. We now have 11 theaters open in Saudi Arabia and 29 in the Middle East, and they’ve done well. But we think that when we can mix in local content and local culture, they can do better.
What made you decide to start this journey with “Ambulance”?
We’ve been exploring different partnerships for the last few years, and we landed on this one with Muvi Cinemas’ studio side, and this particular actor [Ibrahim Hajjaj] has been successful before [in smash hit Saudi wrestling comedy “Sattar.” So we think this is a really good place to start and will really help improve our box office across 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 concentrated on building that part of our content portfolio in order to increase attendance at our theaters and the financial performance.
Given Ibrahim Hajjaj’s track record with “Sattar,” is “Ambulance” going to be an Imax movie not just in Saudi, but across 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 distribute and market 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 attractions for them, for our partner and for us, is the ability to expand 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 sure. And as a matter of fact, as an example I’d use the fact that a lot of the Indian films travel outside of India, and they go to markets where there’s a big expat community. And obviously because the Arab world has been expanding rapidly outside of just the Arab Peninsula, absolutely it could help spur the growth of Arab language film outside of this region.
Can you tell me more about your growth prospects in Saudi and, by extension, the MENA region at large?
As you know, cinema wasn’t really licensed in Saudi until about six or seven years ago [2018]. And the population really liked movies, but [before then] they had to leave the country, like go to Bahrain or go to Dubai to explore cinema. So since it was made legal, it’s grown fairly 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 opening a theatre with Muvi Cinemas tonight that is part of a four-theater deal with Muvi, which is the largest exhibitor in Saudi Arabia. We have other partners, but I think 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 expanding, 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 bring more content. This time around, I’ve been in the region for a few days and we’ve been meeting with other potential partners and different possible investors and discussed projects in order to grow the footprint as quickly as we can. Then across the [MENA] region as a whole, we have 29 venues and a backlog of another 23. What the “backlog” means is we’ve signed other theaters to open. But it takes time to build the building or refurbish the building, so the 29 and the 23 will get us to 52 over the next couple of years as they open up. So that number will obviously go up, and we think over the next five years we can probably get close to 100 theaters in the region.
Do these numbers make the MENA region Imax’s largest growth area?
You know, it depends because probably on a percentage basis it would be one of our largest growth areas in the world. But, for example, in China we have 800 theaters open 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 growing very quickly. But on a percentage basis, actually yes,[MENA] would be our largest growth region in the world.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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