There are many parallels between 8ies Studios, and Vision 2030 – Saudi Arabia’s ambitious reform program.

For one thing, the company name harks back to an era its founders see as the very end of a better age: Shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and the storming of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, but before the knock-on effects had fully kicked in, giving the country’s religious conservatives more sway. The last public cinema was closed in 1983.

The man behind Saudi Arabia’s reform program, the powerful young Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman, agrees with that. MBS, as he’s also known, talks not of “reforming” Islam, but “restoring” it to a more moderate form.

Last month, MBS was ultimately behind the re-opening of public movie screenings for the first time in decades. Maybe there are conservative forces who opposed that move. If there are, they are not speaking out.

Secondly, 8ies is an entertainment business built from scratch. That is exactly what Saudi Arabia is trying to do on a grand scale. The Kingdom’s Private Investment Fund has pledged to spend about 64 billion US dollars on entertainment in the coming decade or so. No doubt 8ies will be looking to tap into some of that money.

Then there is the 8ies team: Made up of young, motivated and talented millennials, they are the very youth Vision 2030 claims to speak to. 70% of the Saudi population is under thirty years old and underemployed. There is recent precedent for what failure to find them jobs might mean: The Arab Spring that swept through the region in 2011, but which Riyadh managed to social spend its way out of. Or, at least, buy itself time.

And finally, 8ies has made testing social boundaries part of its business model. 2030 has too: Aside from cinemas, women will drive in a matter of weeks by royal decree. That is one of many examples of rapid social change.

There are limits to the change potential. Political reform, for example, remains taboo.

But economic and social changes are central pillars of Vision 2030. MBS is driving that transformation from the top down. It is companies like 8ies that are pushing from the bottom up.