Think about any biblical or historical epic you’ve ever seen. There’s probably a barren landscape of soft golden-red rocks, mud brick buildings, and thatched straw roofs.
From “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Noah,” and “The Passion of the Christ,” to “Ben Hur,” “Gladiator,” and “Kingdom of Heaven,” the landscape is the same. There’s a reason for that.
They were all filmed near Ouarzazate, a desert city in southwestern Morocco, that is known as “the door of the desert.”
Just outside Ouarzazate lies Atlas Film Studios, a 322,000-square-foot property that is considered to be one of, if not, the biggest film studio in the world.
Founded in 1983 by Moroccan entrepreneur Mohamed Belghmi for the filming of the 1985 action-adventure film “The Jewel of the Nile,” Atlas has since become a premier destination to film big budget blockbuster films thanks to the area’s dramatic landscapes, the relative cheap cost of production, and its promixity to the striking medieval ksar of Aït Benhaddou, also a popular filming location.
Most recently, Atlas Film Studios was used for filming scenes in “Game of Thrones” and Disney’s upcoming live-action “Aladdin,” starring Will Smith.
On a recent trip to Morocco, I decided to make a stop in Ouarzazate to check out Atlas Studios. It was about as strange a place as I’ve ever been to.
Here’s what it was like:
