Almost 47 years ago, cinemas in Egypt were not closed, particularly since the October 1973 war, when the famous movie "Khali Balak by Zuzu" was stopped at the time. Now the closure is repeated due to the Corona pandemic, and the continuation of the Egyptian government's precautionary measures in the face of the virus, which shocked the Egyptian filmmakers, their stars and their fans. For the first time in the history of Egyptian cinema, Eid Al-Fitr is without films waiting for it.
The government’s decision to continuously shut down cinemas, theaters and entertainment services in Egypt until the end of the Corona crisis overthrew the hopes and dreams of stars and producers to offset tens of millions of losses.
Six huge budget movies were supposed to compete during the Eid Al-Fitr season, bearing the names of the most important Egyptian movie stars, such as Ahmed Ezz, Ahmed El-Sakka, Karim Abdel Aziz, Mona Zaki, Haifa Wehbe, Karim Fahmy, and at the top of the list comes the star Ahmed Ezz with the movie “Al-Aref - Younis’s return. ”The film cost about 80 million Egyptian pounds, and it was filmed in a number of Arab and European countries.
The star Ahmed El-Sakka was going to look at his fans on Eid Al-Fitr with the movie "Spider", after an absence of nearly three years since the presentation of his latest movie, "An Escaping Escape", and it is strange that the movie decided to show it more than once, including last summer, to be a competitor to the movie "Blue Elephant" And «Rizk Sons 2», but the film was not technically ready, and he left the summer race in the last moments, to wait for his unknown fate after the outbreak of the Corona virus and the closure of theaters.
The star, Karim Abdel Aziz, is perhaps one of the biggest losers in canceling the Eid al-Fitr season, as he has two films, the first is "some do not go to the authorized twice", and he was supposed to launch it during the Eid al-Fitr season, and the second is "Keira Waljn", with the star Ahmed Ezz, and he was preparing to release it For Eid Al-Adha season, to participate in the two seasons in succession with two films with a very large productivity, but with the new repercussions, and the closing of the theaters indefinitely, perhaps Karim Kabouh films will suffer very large.
Haifa Wehbe also would have participated in her new movie "Ghosts of Europe", in the Eid al-Fitr cinema race, but you would definitely wait for the cinematic conditions that will arise until you know the fate of her movie, which includes Ahmed Al-Fishawy and Ahmed Dawood.
"Dido" by Karim Fahmy was postponed twice before for the New Year and a half year seasons, and it was scheduled to be shown during the Eid Al-Fitr season, but with the crisis of "Corona" it seems to be postponed indefinitely. And the sixth film that was among the participants in the holiday season, had it not been for the postponement of "Day 13", starring Ahmed Dawoud and Dina El-Sherbiny and directed by Wael Abdullah.
Producer Ahmed Al-Subki told Emirates Today that “a great disappointment occurred to everyone because of the cancellation of the Eid Al-Fitr season, on which we pinned our hopes to make up for our loss from the cancellation of the Sham Al Naseem cinematic season, and the matter added to the continuation of the closure, while huge films await the show, The disaster is that production in this way will stop completely. It is not reasonable for any product to produce a new movie and its old films have not been shown, and from where will we get money to produce new works when we are not aware of what will happen to the movie industry? "In general, there is great hope in the Eid al-Adha season, to compensate the losses and postponed films with very large budgets."
Al-Sobky rejected the proposal to reduce the number of audiences in the galleries to a quarter, similar to what will happen in world cinema soon, as there is a European decision to open cinemas while reducing the number of audiences .. And he said that the small number of audiences will not compensate for the costs of the film, and thus all films will suffer significant losses We will not benefit anything, neither at the level of industry nor the public.
Al-Sobky also rejected the proposal to offer films on electronic platforms, especially since the physical offers from these platforms do not equal a quarter of the budget of any movie, and a film producer will not produce and give him all these losses to electronic platforms.
The head of the Egyptian Chamber of Film Industry, Farouk Sabry, said that the vision is very vague until now, not only in Egypt, but in the whole world, especially since the theaters have continuous costs, such as salaries of employees, utility bills, rent, electricity, operation and maintenance of equipment, and a solution must be found. Fast, because operating cinema with a quarter of the audience will cause losses, as well as showing films on electronic platforms means that we suffocate the film industry and try to bury it, and this is impossible.
6 huge budget movies are supposed to compete for the most important Egyptian movie stars