Tarak Ben Ammar's Eagle Pictures enters the Saudi Film Fund with 5%.

For Eagle Pictures, development now also passes through Arabia. "It is a young country with great potential on the side of film production and distribution," explains to the Sole 24 Ore Tarak Ben Ammar, main shareholder and president, confirming the entry into the Saudi Film Fund. It is a $100m fund aimed at attracting investment from global film studios to help fuel the rapid growth of the local film industry.

Eagle Pictures enters into this venture with 5%, an endowment therefore of 5 million. And this is not a trivial entry. Not everyone can do business with and in Saudi Arabia. Tarak Ben Ammar certainly has the advantage of being Franco-Tunisian, fully integrated in the Arab world and in fact in his personal capacity he will be a member of the Council. 'I had the residency,' he explains, inviting us to consider 'the rapid rise of that market. We are talking about a territory that will become very important in the geography of world cinematography'.

The venture in Arabia opens new horizons for the integrated production and distribution company, which is present in every segment of the content exploitation chain, from production and rights acquisition to distribution through cinema, home video, TV and new media. In Italy it has distribution agreements with Sony Pictures (exclusive) and Paramount. The Eagle Pictures owned by Tarak Ben Ammar and Naguib Sawiris closed 2023 with a production value of 62.3 million and a net profit of 5.5 million, up from 3.4 million a year earlier. Results put on record in the balance sheet of a year that preceded a 2024 that was rich in satisfaction for the company. The latest, in chronological order of appearance, is the exploit of the film The Boy with the Pink Pants, in theatres since 7 November and which, with its 8.9 million at the box office (data as at 15 December), is on its way to being the most viewed Italian film of a year that in the Peninsula has as its box office champion Inside Out 2 by Disney with 45.6 million, ahead of Deadpool & Wolverine, also by Disney, with 17.6 million at the box office.

In this context Eagle Pictures consolidated its second position as the largest distributor in Italy, with 69.9 million and a market share of 15.52%: below Disney's 104.7 million (23.26% market share), but ahead of Warner Bros Italia (61.5 million) and Universal (53.4 million). "The numbers - underlines Ben Ammar - confirm that it has been a year of great satisfaction. And in this sense we have very good expectations for 2025 with films both in production and distribution". The year 2024, which for Eagle Pictures saw the arrival of the Coppa Volpi for the distributed film Babygirl, will now close with Edward Berger's Conclave, in cinemas from the day after tomorrow. Next year will start with Black in the Middle, a documentary on Pino Daniele, and Here, Robert Zemeckis's new and much-discussed film with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, which is much talked about for the de-aging of the protagonists, conducted thanks to artificial intelligence.