Anthony Mackie’s Massive Historical Epic Finally Gets First Trailer After 5 Years of Delays

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Anthony Mackie looking back while traveling with Aiysha Hart on horseback in Desert Warrior

Published Mar 12, 2026, 11:01 AM EDT

Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.

Back in 2021, Anthony Mackie put his Captain America shield aside for a moment to head to seventh-century Arabia for the historical action epic Desert Warrior. The ambitious project was set to be a landmark production, marking what was to be the first film shot in Neom in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the largest production in the country's history, sporting a $150 million budget backed by Riyadh media giant MBC with a crew numbering in the hundreds. Moreover, it had a blockbuster filmmaker at the helm in Rupert Wyatt, known for helming 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. However, despite filming wrapping back in early 2022, the post-production process has been long and tumultuous, to say the least.

Wyatt's sweeping feature, centering on a history-defining pre-Islamic battle between feuding Arab tribes and the Persian-Sasanian Empire, was weighed down by reports of creative differences behind the scenes. The director even left the project at one point, before eventually returning to complete editing of the film. There were starting to be concerns that the film would never see the light of day. However, it finally delivered on its promised festival premiere last September at the Zurich Film Festival and, last month, Vertical picked up the rights to the film in both the U.S. and the U.K., paving the way for release next month on April 24. Now, the first trailer has premiered at last, finally pulling back the curtain on what Wyatt and the team have spent nearly five years putting together.

Taking center stage in the Desert Warrior footage are Mackie's legendary bandit, and We Are Lady Parts star Aiysha Hart's Princess Hind. Spurning her fate to become the concubine of the vicious Emperor Kisra (Ben Kingsley), she heads into the desert with her father, pursued by an army hell-bent on dragging her back home one way or another. The dire situation forces her to team up with the bandit, who is full of secrets himself, but also may be her only hope of finding freedom. She quickly becomes more than just a fugitive princess, but a true warrior capable of uniting tribes for a grand, sweeping final stand against the Empire with the fate of all of Arabia on the line. Ghassan Massoud and Sharlto Copley also star.

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Who Helped Write 'Desert Warrior'?

In addition to directing, Wyatt also penned the screenplay to Desert Warrior with Erica Beeney and David Self. This isn't Beeney's first collaboration with Wyatt, previously working on his 2018 alien invasion political thriller Captive State starring John Goodman and Ashton Sanders. Self, meanwhile, has plenty of experience writing for big-name directors, with credits on the maligned 2010 The Wolfman remake with Benecio del Toro and Anthony Hopkins, as well as Sam Mendes' 2002 Tom Hanks Oscar winner Road to Perdition. With some notable writing firepower and stunning visuals, it's primed to be another massive scale project for Mackie in a year when he's also set to take up his shield once more in the massive new MCU team-up, Avengers: Doomsday in December.