Rise of the Witches

[humble minion]

Has anyone heard of, or better yet seen, this?

Rise of the Witches (TV Series 2024– ) ⭐ 8.0 | Adventure, Fantasy

50m

www.imdb.com

Saudi Giant MBC Unveils ‘Rise of the Witches,’ “Biggest TV Series” to Be Made in Country

The 10-part fantasy adventure is now shooting at Neom, set to be home to Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's much-hyped $500 billion megacity.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

A 10-part fantasy series set in pre-Islamic Arabia. Saudi production, huge budget, female main characters. Apparently was released at the start of 2024, but I've looked around and have found almost nothing in English. Not available on any streaming service that I'm aware of. It doesn't even have a wiki page.

I'd never even heard of it before today, but was doing some googling for inspiration for a possible future Al-Qadim-ish campaign, and happened across it. I've seen it talked about on multiple reputable sites, so pretty sure it's not another clickbait AI hallucination like many other mirages I've chased while researching this topic. I'd dearly love to check it out if i can.

 

[Mad_Jack]

Never heard of it before, but it definitely sounds interesting... Couldn't find any more information on it than you did, though.

 

[Patrick Weber]

I have been waiting on this for years since I first found it announced and haven’t been shown at a festival with great reviews. What other than war could be keeping it from being released? Perhaps theocratic push-back due the themes of empowered women and their misunderstanding of witches?

 

[humble minion]

Ah, I hadn't twigged that it hadn't actually been released yet! I thought it was just a Saudi-only thing that had never been translated to English or had an international release.

Some sort of political or censorship machination seems depressingly possible, not that I'm particularly expert on how these things work in SA. Filming apparently started in late 2022, and even with a interrupted production or slow process (like Alien Earth had), surely the've had enough tine to finish it by now.

The author of the books the series is based on has a twitter account, but it's all in Arabic and I can't read it. I did find one of the english scriptwriters and dropped him a message, maybe he's have some info...