Desert Warrior just broke a new record, but not in a good way. At one point, the Anthony Mackie film, which was originally announced way back in 2021, felt like one of those big-budget mirages that audiences would never actually get to see. And given its reported $150 million price tag, that was a disaster. The Saudi-backed historical epic was actually stuck in development quicksand for five years (and that was after rewrites and walkouts and heated arguments behind the scenes), until it finally got a 2026 release. But the writing was on the wall for Desert Warrior way before it was released.
The film face-planted at the box office this week when it managed to pull in $472,000 during its opening across more than 1,000 U.S. screens. And for a film directed by Rupert Wyatt starring big stars like Anthony Mackie, Ben Kingsley, and Sharlto Copley, you’ve got to say that’s pretty awful.
But critics weren’t exactly kind to the historical action film either. Desert Warrior has a very low 1.9/10 IMDb score and a sad 27% Rotten Tomatoes rating – that’s actually even lower than Cats.
It’s abysmal opening weekend numbers now place it among the worst wide-release openings ever, landing around 12th place. In the “over 1,000 screens” category, it’s in 7th place, just behind The D Train with Jack Black.
Set in 7th-century Arabia during a time of tribal conflict and Sassanid expansion, at the center of the film stands Princess Hind, played by Aiysha Hart, who refuses to become a concubine to Emperor Kisra, portrayed by Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley. Hind escapes into the desert with her father, King Numan, played by Ghassan Massoud, only to be hunted by Kisra’s mercenary Jalabzeen, played by Sharlto Copley. Mackie plays a mysterious bandit, who helps spark a rebellion that builds toward the historic Battle of Ze Qar, a clash said to have reshaped the Arabian Peninsula.
The production once compared the film’s final battle to The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. That’s something they probably want to backtrack on.
Desert Warrior is directed by Rupert Wyatt, the filmmaker behind successful blockbusters like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Escapist, who briefly exited the film due to creative differences, but later returned to finish editing.
Wyatt later told Deadline, “Desert Warrior is that rare beast of a film that combines a very human story with epic scope and ambition. Shot in the most extraordinary desert landscapes, with a cast and crew of thousands who all reached for the stars, I am privileged to have played my part in perhaps one of the last in-camera on location action epics. So it’s fitting and fortunate to have Vertical bring our film to cinema audiences and the big screen. Long live cinema!”
Desert Warrior was meant to be Saudi Arabia’s first major Hollywood blockbuster. Now it’s become one of its biggest disasters. Only streaming can save it now.
