It has been a galaxy far, far away, home to ferocious sand-worms and deputised for both Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Increasingly, though, it has simply been itself, a place of stunning desert vistas and architectural wonders.
We are talking about Hollywood’s unfolding love affair with the UAE when it comes to finding the best location for many of its biggest films.
Exactly 20 years ago, Syriana became the first Hollywood motion picture to use the UAE as a backdrop. Starring George Clooney as a CIA agent, and with a cast that included Matt Damon and Amanda Peet, the 2005 political thriller was set in a fictional Arabian Gulf oil state.
Several scenes were shot in Dubai’s Burj Al Arab hotel, while Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood and the desert around the city also featured prominently.
Since then at least a dozen more Hollywood films have been shot in the UAE. The most recent, released in November this year, is the third instalment of the Now You See Me series. Over 13 days of shooting, locations including Yas Island, Sheikh Zayed Bridge, W Hotel and Liwa all featured prominently in the story of crime-fighting magicians.
Credit for attracting the makers of Now You See Me 3 must go to the Abu Dhabi Film Commission which offers a generous 35 per cent cashback rebate to qualifying productions, along with assistance in finding locations and local expertise.
The ADFC was set up in 2009, with David Shepheard appointed from London as its first commissioner.
The increased focus on film came as the UAE was “just starting having the conversations about diversifying the economy away from oil and the film industry was courting Abu Dhabi and Dubai quite heavily, because they had money to invest in the industry,” said Mr Shepheard.
“My boss at the time, Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei [late chairman of Abu Dhabi Media], was trying to establish more of a local film industry.
“So my brief was to court Hollywood and international film production, but that was the icing on the cake. It was more about developing the local film industry and having an infrastructure for Emiratis to be able to tell their own stories and to make films for Arab audiences.”
Burj Khalifa's blockbuster moment
The “icing on the cake”, though, was to provide much of the earlier success. In 2011 Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol wowed cinema audiences as Tom Cruise performed a stunt at the top of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.
“That opened up the eyes of filmmakers to what the UAE has and it just grew from there. Filmmakers are always looking for a new place that hasn't been seen on screen before, that they can bring to the world in their movies,” Mr Shepheard said.
“So I think after Mission: Impossible, there was a lot of interest in the UAE, both in Abu Dhabi and Dubai as places to bring those bigger movies.”
By then the ADFC was talking to the Lucasfilm team, headed by Kathleen Kennedy, about the long-awaited sequel to the original Star Wars trilogy. The 1977 original A New Hope had used Tunisia as a location, but for the 2015 The Force Awakens, the Abu Dhabi desert around Liwa Oasis was chosen.
The same area was used for the desert planet Arrakis, the fictional location for the two Dune films, released in 2021 and 2023. Star Trek Beyond (2016) repurposed Dubai for the 23rd century thanks to its futuristic architecture. In 2017, War Machine, starring Brad Pitt, saw Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah double for Afghanistan. Ten years earlier, The Kingdom, starring Jamie Foxx, had Abu Dhabi standing in for Riyadh.
Life in the fast lane
Increasingly, though, filmmakers have wanted the UAE to represent itself. Furious 7, the 2015 edition of the Fast and the Furious series, was filmed at Emirates Palace, Yas Marina F1 circuit, as well as Jumeirah at Etihad Tower for a scene in which a car jumps across the hotel's twin towers.
Yas Marina naturally featured as itself in this year’s F1: The Movie, while Cruise returned to the UAE for the 2023 Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, with his character Ethan Hunt running across the roof of the Midfield Terminal at Zayed International Airport even before it had opened.
Using the location almost as a character in a film can be important as a promotional tool.
“That's always the goal of someone like a film commissioner, because if you can have the place be as it is, that helps with the promotion of it,” says Mr Shepheard, who left the commission in 2014 and now works in Canada
“The trade-off in having a major film calling your city by its own name is that it then goes on screens globally. As long as there's a positive storyline, it's a real added bonus of free promotion because eyeballs around the world are actually seeing the city you're trying to promote.”
The other area the film commission supports is emerging Arab talent. The award-winning 2012 breakout hit Wadjda, about a 10-year-old girl negotiating contemporary Saudi culture, was made possible thanks to a $100,000 (Dh367,000) prize awarded by the ADFC to writer and director Haifaa Al Mansour in 2009.
“There are 300 million Arab-speaking people in the region. So there's a massive audience that's hungry for stories from their language and culture,” Mr Shepheard said.
Local talent has also been developed in other ways. Sameer Al Jaberi, head of the Abu Dhabi Film Commission since 2024, first worked there, Mr Shepheard remembers, as an intern.
