{"id":265752,"date":"2026-02-03T16:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/265752\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T16:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:35:07","slug":"jason-statham-action-pic-shelter-scores-record-opening-in-mena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/265752\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Statham Action Pic \u2018Shelter\u2019 Scores Record Opening In MENA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJason Statham<\/a>\u00a0has shown his box office clout in the Middle East<\/a> and North Africa<\/a> once again with action picture Shelter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe movie\u2019s MENA<\/a> distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment<\/a> said Shelter took the number one slot across the region as it launched in cinemas there last week, to deliver a $2.23 million opening weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe company \u2013 which co-released the title with longtime partner Kuwait National Cinema Company \u2013 said this represented the largest theatrical opening in the region for an independently produced title since the release of Statham\u2019s A Working Man in April 2025. Both films were produced by Black Bear.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also highlighted that the MENA debut outperformed several key international markets, opening ahead of China ($2.1 million), the UK ($1.3 million), and delivering approximately 40% of its U.S. opening haul ($5.5 million), underscoring the region\u2019s growing influence in the global theatrical landscape.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film was particularly successful in Saudi Arabia where it accounted for 34.5% of total nationwide admissions\u00a0and\u00a038% of total box office revenue\u00a0during its opening weekend.<\/p>\n

\n\tAcross the weekend,\u00a0Shelter\u00a0drew\u00a059,000 admissions\u00a0in Saudi Arabia and generated\u00a0$1 Million, with an average ticket price of\u00a0$15.50, making it the\u00a0biggest opening for an English-language title in Saudi Arabia since late September.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film also\u00a0topped the daily box office on its opening Wednesday, driven purely by midnight screenings, to outperform a wide slate of recent studio releases including Greenland 2, 28 Years Later: Bone Temple and Avatar: Fire and Ash.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the United Arab Emirates,\u00a0Shelter delivered\u00a037,000 admissions over the opening weekend out of a total market attendance of 133,700.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film generated\u00a0$681k accounting for\u00a028% of all admissions\u00a0and\u00a033% of total box office revenue\u00a0over the weekend, with a robust average ticket price of\u00a0$18.30, driven by strong premium-format and weekend demand.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u201cIt\u2019s been a period of real uncertainty for audiences and for the theatrical market, which makes this response especially meaningful,\u201d said Front Row CEO Gianluca Chakra.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAt times like these, cinema as escapism becomes essential and Shelter clearly struck that chord. Jason Statham\u2019s connection with audiences in this region is unmatched, and Shelter reinforces his position as the defining action star for MENA.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jason Statham\u00a0has shown his box office clout in the Middle East and North Africa once again with action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[156,151537,38490,67657,5107,409,111,139,151538,69,9434],"class_list":{"0":"post-265752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-front-row-filmed-entertainment","10":"tag-jason-statham","11":"tag-mena","12":"tag-middle-east","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-north-africa","17":"tag-nz","18":"tag-shelter"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}