In 2021, Sharlto Copley (“District 9,” “The Witcher”) and Aiysha Hart (“Mogul Mowgli,” “Colette”) spent five months in a scenic desert area near the site of the futuristic city of NEOM to shoot Saudi Arabia’s first Hollywood-style tentpole movie, “ Desert Warrior .”

Almost five years later it is now finally launching in the Middle East from the Red Sea Film Festival .

The big-budget epic, directed by British filmmaker Rupert Wyatt (“Rise of the Planet of the Apes”), is set in 7th-century Arabia and revolves around a princess (Hart) who refuses to serve as concubine to the ruthless emperor Kisra, played by Ben Kingsley, prompting an epic showdown called the Battle of Ze Qar. Copley plays the ruthless mercenary commander Jalabzeen tasked by the emperor with hunting down the proto-femin

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