Turki Alalshikh wants Zack Snyder to direct a UFC movie after the promotion’s successful debut in Saudi Arabia
A UFC movie directed by Zack Snyder? Why isn’t that already a thing?!
Following the promotion’s successful debut in Saudi Arabia on Saturday night, Turki Alalshikh, Chairman of the country’s General Entertainment Authority, has some pretty big plans for the future. Joining play-by-play man Jon Anik and UFC CEO Dana White, Alalshikh revealed some of his goals, including increasing the stadium capacity to 30,000 and featuring women on the card when the UFC returns to Riyadh in 2025.
Alalshikh also likes the idea of producing a UFC movie, already having the perfect director in mind.
“I want to have a meeting with [White] and the director Zack Snyder, who’s a friend,” Alalshikh said. “We want to talk about doing a big movie about the UFC. Like The Cinderella Man, something like this. I would like to convince Zack Snyder he liked the idea and also convince Dana” (h/t MMA Mania).
Snyder is one of the more polarizing directors in Hollywood. After earning critical acclaim with films like Dawn of the Dead (2004), 300, and Watchmen, Snyder has seen fans slowly turn on him, particularly after his poorly received take on beloved DC Comics characters with movies like Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Still, Snyder has a strong fan base with many embracing his dark take on the lighter side of entertainment.
Could Zack Snyder Deliver the next big MMA movie?
In more recent years, Snyder has focused on making original films, such as the recently reassessed Sucker Punch, and a handful of movies for Netflix, including Army of the Dead and his two-part Rebel Moon saga.
One thing is for sure; Hollywood could use a few more quality films with MMA as the focus. In 2011, fight fans were gifted The Warrior, a critically acclaimed film starring Joel Edgerton, Tom Hardy, and Nick Nolte, who received an Academy Award nomination for his riveting performance.
A year later, we got Here Comes The Boom, a comedy film with Kevin James as a school teacher who takes to fighting to save his friend’s job.
In 2020, avid MMA fan Halle Berry starred in Bruised, a passion project distributed by Netflix. Berry, who also directed the film, stars as Jackie Justice, an ex-MMA fighter who gets back into the cage after being forced to take responsibility for the son she gave up years earlier.
The movie featured former UFC flyweight world champion Valentina Shevchenko, but failed the wow critics, amassing a 50% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a not-much-better 56% audience score.
Is Zack Snyder the man to bring us another good MMA movie?
