Barbara Broccoli has confirmed that her first post-James Bond function Othello has secured monetary backing in Qatar and can shoot within the Gulf territory within the autumn of 2026.
David Oyelowo, Rachel Brosnahan and Cynthia Erivo are set to star within the movie, with Oyelowo additionally right down to direct.
Broccoli introduced the information on the three-day Business Days in Qatar hosted by the Movie Committee at Media Metropolis Qatar in partnership with the Doha Movie Institute, the place she was joined on stage by Nicky Bentham and Oyelowo.
The James Bond producer and Bentham are producing for EON Productions with Oyelowo for Yoruba Saxon and in partnership with Qatar’s Doha-based Katara Studios, which is co-financing the function.
The function can even faucet into the nation’s not too long ago introduced Qatar Display Manufacturing Incentive (QSPI).
L.A.-based manufacturing and VFX big Firm 3, which introduced on Saturday that it was organising an operation in Doha, can even be engaged on the movie.
The long-gestated venture takes its cue from Broccoli’s 2016 theater manufacturing of the Shakespeare basic Othello transposing the early seventeenth century Venice-set drama a few Moorish commander to a U.S. barracks in Iraq.
The unique stage manufacturing, which had a brief run on the New York Theater Workshop, was directed by Sam Gold, and starred Oyelowo as Othello.
Oyelowo returns to the solid alongside Brosnahan, who reprises her position as Desdemona, and with Erivo, who will play Desdemona’s maid Emilia.
Rumors that the function was near being green-lighted have been rife even since Broccoli’s Eon Manufacturing registered the Othello Movie Firm Restricted.
Broccoli is amongst a raft of prime cinema professionals who’ve been in conversations with Qatar for a while over potential collaborations, with the producer noticed at a gala dinner hosted by the Doha Movie Institute (DFI) and the Media Metropolis Qatar (MCQ) on the fringes of the Venice Movie Pageant in 2024.
Affirmation of the Othello shoot in Qatar comes simply months after Broccoli ceded the rights together with her brother Michael G. Wilson to their household’s James Bond franchise to Amazon MGM Studios.
Broccoli introduced the Othello information within the context of a masterclass on inventive producing during which she was joined by Oscar-nominated producer and former mentee Bentham, with Oyelowo taking to the stage as an unannounced visitor.
“I’ve wished to provide the cinematic adaptation of Othello since we staged the manufacturing in New York in 2016. I’m extremely excited that David Oyelowo shall be directing and returning as Othello, Rachel Brosnahan shall be reprising the position of Desdemona and Cynthia Erivo is taking part in Emilia. We thank the Movie Committee for his or her assist and sit up for taking pictures in Qatar in Autumn 2026,” mentioned Broccoli.
Oyelowo added: “Our cinematic model of Othello is bitingly trendy and fearlessly bold. To have an actual shot at that, you want fearless actors. Cynthia just isn’t solely a generational expertise however an expensive good friend with whom I’m all the time eager to collaborate, and Rachel was a dream to play reverse in our unique stage manufacturing and has been an inspiring pillar to construct round for our contemporary tackle this legendary story”.
Created in 2022 and falling beneath the remit of Media Metropolis Qatar, the physique charged with rising the nation as a media and inventive industries hub, Qatar’s Movie Committee is headed by Hassan Al Thawadi, the Qatari lawyer who oversaw the group of the Qatar World Cup.
After engaged on its technique beneath the radar till now, the physique has lastly lifted the lid on its ambitions and actions on the Business Days over the previous three days, with a raft bulletins together with a brand new incentive and partnerships with Neon and Division M, Miramax, Sony and Firm 3.
