Ritchie is among the large delegation of Hollywood names that this week traveled to the country for Red Sea and made their way up to AlUla. Other guests include actors Scott Eastwood, Lucy Hale, and Henry Golding., starring Tom Holland. While that film only shot three days in the region, local officials told Deadline that establishing an industry that facilitates production is a top priority for the country’s senior leadership.
Below, Guy Ritchie speaks to Deadline about why he decided to travel to Saudi, what he believes the role of a film festival should be, and his forthcoming series adaptation of his 2019 filmThroughout your career, you haven’t shown many of your films at festivals, so why did you think it was important to come to Red Sea? And what do you think is the role of a film festival?I think film festivals are important in the sense that film needs to be celebrated.
You don’t want to just keep repeating what everyone else is doing all over the world. But if you can do things that actually make a difference and stir something within the industry, then I think that should be the objective of what a festival should be as opposed to it just being a business thing or a bunch of boring old filmmakers going along to show their wares.GUY RITCHIE:
I like the Middle East very much for all sorts of reasons: historical and religious. And increasingly, I just like the old world. The older the world, the more interested I’m in it. I don’t know why. I’m just comfortable in the Middle East.No, I love the UK to the point where I can bang on about the UK more than anyone else. I’m terribly patriotic. And I’m a big fan of English weather. What everyone sees as rotten English weather, I adore. However, it is great to get out of England.
DEADLINE: Your last three films have made over $100 million at the box office. What do you think the industry should be doing to encourage cinemagoing?I have no idea what anyone else should be doing, and I’m not the man to give advice. You can only do what you’re interested in doing. And the fact about filmmaking is that its good fun. So you do feel as though you owe the people that loan you the money or distribute the film some degree of payback.
Is he slowly morphing into Spielberg