(RNS) — An animated film made by and for Muslims will hit a total lot of U.S. and Canadian movie theaters this weekend, marking a milestone for Muslim adolescents’s representation on the big screen.
The movie, “Time Hoppers: The Silk Road,” follows four talented college students who travel back in time on a mission to guard historical Muslim scientists from an contaminated, time-bending alchemist. It marks the first major theatrical release of an animated feature by Muslim creators.
Co-author and director Flordeliza Dayrit informed Religion News Service that the film showcases the rich historical past of Muslim innovators who have shaped the world but are now now not regularly given screen time.
“A lot of times you search Muslims in the media, especially in Hollywood, as bad guys, as villains,” Dayrit said. “With ‘Time Hoppers,’ we want to make clear Muslim youth are the superheroes of the movie.”
Produced by Milo Productions, a Canadian adolescents’s media company, and allotted by Fathom Entertainment, “Time Hoppers” will seemingly be proven at over 650 theaters across the two countries starting on Saturday and Sunday (Feb. 7 and 8). Entertainment industry outlet Variety reported 35,000 tickets have been supplied in pre-sales as of Thursday (Feb. 5).
The film has generated “unheard of grassroots fortify,” said Michael Milo, the film’s co-producer.
With a restricted marketing finances, Milo said his team initially scared about how to spread phrase about the film. To his shock, interest in the film grew organically thru what he called “local champions” — a community of families, influencers and neighborhood leaders who promoted the film out of real fortify.
Several Muslim American educators, spiritual scholars and neighborhood leaders have been also cast in articulate roles, including Omar Regan, Dalia Mogahed and Imam Omar Suleiman (an RNS columnist). Their inclusion built extra neighborhood purchase-in and belief in the film, the producers said.
That early excitement made it imaginable for Fathom Entertainment to rapidly increase theater bookings and reveal times in response.
“The industry is recognizing Muslims as a big and important segment of the overall population, and also one that has purchasing vitality to head to the movies,” Milo said.
But authentic experiences about Muslims are now now not only meaningful for Muslim viewers, research exhibits. Certain depictions of Muslims in entertainment media lead to greater opposition to anti-democratic and anti-Muslim insurance policies, according to a 2025 watch from the Institute for Social Coverage and Understanding, an American Muslim research organization.
While Milo said “Time Hoppers” doesn’t have scream spiritual messages, the film is meant to reveal that Muslim existence and characters belong in entertainment. “We are demonstrating to the world that faith has a place, and it wishes to be celebrated, and it’s such an integral part of so many folks’s lives,” he said. “Why shouldn’t or now now not it be remarkable extra contemporary in cinema or on television?”
Movie poster for “Time Hoppers: The Silk Road.” (Image courtesy Milo Productions)
To that stay, Milo and Dayrit consulted MPAC Hollywood Bureau, a subset of the Muslim Public Affairs Council that works to reinforce how Muslims are represented on screen. The writers of the film also relied on Muslim historians to accurately portray historic figures such as mathematician Al-Khwarizmi and Fatima al-Fihriya, who based the world’s first college.
Hassam Munir, a Canada-based historian who works with Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research’s marketing team, researched and chosen the historical Muslim innovators for the “Time Hoppers” mobile game, which was adapted into the film.
He said he aimed to depict a various jam of figures to reveal that Muslim contributions have been now now not restricted to a particular time, place or cultural background.
“It’s about exhibiting Muslim adolescents heroes that search and sound familiar, which is now now not one thing that Muslim adolescents may regularly acquire to search,” he said, adding that it is important for Muslims “to relate our experiences.”
Milo and Dayrit, the husband-and-spouse team in the back of Milo Productions, have years of expertise producing adolescents’s media. The company’s main mission is MuslimKids.TV, a specialty streaming provider launched in 2016.
“We want the film to be a proof of concept for Muslim media makers out there,” Dayrit said.
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