MBC Studios Chief Christina Wayne Talks Amplifying Female Voices – Deadline

In a rustic the place girls’s freedoms have traditionally been marginalized (a nationwide ban on feminine drivers was solely lifted 5 years in the past), new MBC Studios boss Christina Wayne is decided to hunt out the strongest feminine inventive voices Saudi Arabia has to supply.

In her first main interview since changing Peter Smith in February, American producer Wayne, who shepherded Mad Men and Breaking Bad for AMC Networks, tells Deadline how the Riyadh-based media big is encouraging work from “across all genders” however lasering in on new feminine expertise.

“We have lots of amazing female writers and directors in the region who are bringing us fabulous stories,” she says. “There are book series here with fanbases that are young and female, and they are surprisingly interested in fantasy and sci-fi.”

Despite being criticized for a litany of human rights abuses and ‘sportswashing’ claims, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spearheaded alternatives and larger freedoms for ladies in Saudi Arabia since 2017 when main reforms started going down as a part of his Vision 2030 agenda. That 12 months, the nation lifted its 35-year ban on cinema and has since sought to place itself as a significant regional TV and movie hub with the burgeoning Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah and the much-publicized location scorching spots of Neom and Film AlUla. Indeed, Hollywood bigwigs have develop into more and more intrigued by what the nation has to supply by way of expertise, places and that beneficiant 40% tax rebate.

Women have since taken lively inventive and govt roles in a territory that, till very not too long ago, wouldn’t allow them to drive or file for divorce. Western involvement is changing into extra prevalent, and the nation’s filmmakers are starting to be acknowledged on the worldwide stage.

Katie Holmes is even mentoring three feminine filmmakers by a Film AlUla Creates program, which was unveiled on the Cannes Film Festival this 12 months.

Wayne doesn’t immediately handle the function LGBTQIA+ tales can play in a nation the place homosexuality stays unlawful however as an alternative says the main focus is on “telling stories that are culturally relevant to the area, and that are going to resonate with the audience.”

“We are looking at diverse points of view in all the ways we tell our stories. Our teams look at books, formats, IP and everything that is out there in the world, just like any other studio, and then bring ideas to our buyers [the MBC networks and streaming service Shahid].”

Taking MBC to the following degree

Wayne’s function is intriguing. She’s the top of a significant studio group connected to the Gulf area’s largest tv community, MBC, in a rustic wanting to be the area’s content material powerhouse after a long time spent refusing to play the sport.

Just over 5 years in the past, MBC Studios was launched as bin Salman’s reforms bought underway. Led by the brand new Crown Prince (who’s now additionally Prime Minister), embracing leisure appeared a sure-fire strategy to change the picture of the nation and appeal to funding, so MBC made a leap into the high-end TV and movie world.

The group, led by long-serving Brit CEO Sam Barnett, employed ex-NBCUniversal International and Antenna Group content material chief Peter Smith — who was Wayne’s boss at Cineflix Studios throughout the 2010s — to go up a brand new studio operation. He targeted on establishing the construction for the enterprise, resulting in the likes of big-budget fantasy sequence Rise of the Witches, The Devil’s Promise from British producer Tony Jordan and mega-budget Anthony Mackie-starrer Desert Warrior, which filmed in Neom.

Notably, MBC moved its headquarters from Dubai to the Saudi capital of Riyadh final 12 months as the most recent step in its multimillion-dollar technique, a transfer signaling that vast funding in high-end manufacturing was right here to remain. MBC had initially launched in London as a dongle satellite tv for pc channel and right now runs greater than 20 linear channels, manufacturing operations and a coaching facility that’s educated greater than 18,000 individuals.

Now, MBC Studios is a longtime participant regionally and is the beating content-creation coronary heart of MBC’s linear networks and Shahid, which is accessible throughout the area and in nations such because the U.S., UK and Australia. As a end result, it presents a brand new and distinctive problem for Wayne, a Hollywood seasoned trade exec who performed a big function in growing massive hits whereas at AMC Networks.

Having begun her profession beneath the tutelage of Chinatown scriptwriter Robert Evans, Wayne wrote and directed movies within the U.S. and later joined AMC, the place she produced the ratings-spinning miniseries Broken Trail and developed a number of of its hottest titles. She later ran Cineflix Studios, which made BBC America drama Copper after which moved into indie manufacturing at Assembly Entertainment, which made the likes of Showtime’s underrated LA stand-up drama I’m Dying Up Here.

More not too long ago, she had a spell as Amazon Studios Head of Canadian and Australian Originals however left final 12 months after helming an area remake of unscripted format LOL and dramas akin to Three Pines, starring Alfred Molina. She has now relocated from North America to Riyadh and is studying a brand new tradition on the job — albeit most issues nonetheless really feel considerably acquainted.

“Saudi was a territory I’d done some work in while at Amazon, so it piqued my interest when MBC reached out to me,” she recollects. “Pete had set up all the different departments, developed a strong slate and launched some shows. That was the start-up phase and now it’s really the growth and maturation phase.”

Though she’s nonetheless broadly overseeing Smith’s slate whereas new concepts are drummed up, Wayne says operationally her new firm “works pretty much like any studio I’ve worked at — the relationship between MBC and MBC Studios is the same as the relationship of Prime Video and Amazon Studios. They tell us their mandate, the genres they want and the demographics they have and we look to fulfil that.”

This manifests in tales designed particularly for the Saudi viewers and others that appeal to viewers from the broader Middle East and North Africa area. Most manufacturing is in Arabic, although there’s a small concentrate on English-language tasks that “are still told from the region through authentic points of view.”

International enterprise and co-productions are ramping up. Wayne says she had an “A-list, top-tier producer who had a big blockbuster hit this summer pitch to us in the past few weeks,” although she declines to disclose their identification.

Indeed, U.S. stars, administrators and studios have flocked to shoot within the nation as increasingly funding has rolled in, drawing comparisons with the game sector, which has had the same enhance. Just this 12 months on the Cannes Film Festival got here the announcement of a pair of state-backed movie funds value a complete of $180 million which can be geared toward native expertise and attracting extra worldwide tasks.

Neom, the northern Saudi space being constructed to be an industrial powerhouse and futuristic city metropolis, has attracted quite a few tasks such because the Gerard Butler-starring Kandahar, Tomb Raider director Simon West’s upcoming epic movie Antara and Shah Ruhk Khan’s Bollywood function Dunki.

Still, MBC Studios has guidelines of engagement. “The stuff we get involved with has to have an authentic local lead voice and that does limit some of the things we can we do, but people are open-minded and welcoming of Arab lead characters and storytelling,” says Wayne. “Then we can get writers and directors who can make that authentic, so it’s not a Western writer or director who is telling that story.”

Wayne says that to the U.S. labor strikes had an influence on a “smaller number of global projects in English that have WGA deals.”

“We couldn’t work on them,” she says. “Most of our projects are set within the region so are not affected as they use local writers and directors, but even when you tried to work with people from overseas, say in the UK, they were reluctant to work, even if they’re not WGA. When we worked on a WGA project, we adhered to the strike.”