Hadoota, Ahmed Helmy’s first film in about four years, took EGP12.2m ($228,000) in Egyptian cinemas on Friday 13 November, its third day on release, according to figures carried on Saturday by the website of Egypt’s National Media Authority and by several Cairo news sites. The reports described the exact figure, EGP12,200,806, as the biggest single day for an Egyptian film outside the Eid holidays, the weeks in which the country’s largest releases usually open. They put the three-day total at EGP24.09m ($451,000).
Key facts
- Hadoota (حدوتة, also romanised Hadouta): directed by Mazen Ashraf, written by Ahmed Abdel Rahman, produced by Ahmed Badawi’s Film Square; Ahmed Helmy and Amina Khalil lead; released in Egypt on Wednesday 11 November
- Friday 13 November: EGP12.2m ($228,000) as published; Filmyard counts EGP12.19m from 77,227 tickets at 68 cinemas, Cinema Track EGP11.81m from 73,692 tickets at 73 cinemas
- First three days: EGP24.09m ($451,000) as published; EGP24.08m from 148,363 tickets on Filmyard, EGP23.21m on Cinema Track
- Previous reported non-holiday record: El Harifa 2: El Remontada, which peaked at EGP10.12m on Friday 6 December 2024, according to Cinema Track
- Hadoota took 83% of the EGP14.25m Cinema Track recorded for all Egyptian films on Friday
What the trackers show
Egyptian daily grosses reach the press from distributors and from two private trackers, Filmyard and Cinema Track. FilmBunch checked the circulated figures for Hadoota against both. The three counts differ by small amounts, and all of them put the film’s Friday above the previous non-holiday high.
Filmyard, the tracker Youm7 cited for the opening day, shows EGP3.77m from 21,770 tickets on the Wednesday opening, EGP8.11m from 49,366 on Thursday and EGP12.19m from 77,227 on Friday. Its three days add up to EGP24.08m, within EGP17,500 of the circulated total. Cinema Track has Friday at EGP11.81m and the three days at EGP23.21m, about 4% lower. On Filmyard’s count, the average Friday ticket cost about EGP158 ($2.96). Dollar conversions in this story use xe.com’s mid-market rate for 13 November, EGP53.42 to the dollar.
The film had the day almost to itself. Of the eight Egyptian titles Cinema Track recorded on Friday, Hadoota took 83% of the money and a similar share of tickets. The No. 2, the Luxor-set romantic comedy Wala Kan Ala El Bal, made about EGP1.21m. That is also a Film Square production, which gives Badawi’s company the two highest-grossing Egyptian films in cinemas.
Against the holiday hits
The last film billed as the non-holiday record holder was the football drama El Harifa 2: El Remontada, which Cairo papers including Al-Ahram Gate said had taken about EGP10m on Friday 6 December 2024, its third day on release. Cinema Track’s page for the film puts that day at EGP10.12m. On the published figure, Hadoota’s Friday is about 21% higher; on Cinema Track’s own lower count, about 17%.
Holiday releases still play at another level. Among the ten films on Cinema Track’s all-time chart for Egyptian titles, four had a bigger single day than Hadoota, and each came in an Eid week: 7 Dogs (EGP26.3m on 28 May 2026), Bershama (EGP23.2m on 22 March 2026), Welad Rizk 3: El Qadia (EGP23.1m on 18 June 2024) and Siko Siko (EGP15.1m on 2 April 2025). 7 Dogs finished on about EGP271.5m, the chart’s top total. Among this autumn’s releases, Matloub Aelian, which opened in October, stands at EGP72.8m in its sixth week on Cinema Track’s count.
The film
Hadoota is Helmy’s first lead role since Wahid Tani in 2022, which grossed about EGP63m in Egypt, according to Cairo 24. Here he plays a small-time thug who loses his memory and cannot recall where he hid a witness he kidnapped, and turns to a hypnotherapist, played by Amina Khalil, to recover it. Al-Masry Al-Youm noted that it is the first time the two have worked together. Maged El Masry, Khaled El Sawy and Rahma Ahmed co-star.
Its official posters carry the logos of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority and Riyadh Season alongside those of Film Square, Big Time Fund and Orient Films. Helmy and Khalil promoted the film at a fan event in Dubai on 8 November, Youm7 reported. The circulated reports say it opened at No. 1 in Arab markets and is playing in Europe and the US, but no figures from those markets have been published and we could not confirm the chart positions. It reached Egyptian cinemas on the same day the Cairo International Film Festival opened its 47th edition. More Egyptian figures are on our Egypt box office page.
Our reading
The biggest days on Cinema Track’s chart all belong to Eid releases, when families go out in numbers that ordinary weeks cannot match. Hadoota shows a star vehicle can open at near-holiday levels in mid-November, with almost no competition in cinemas. Its Friday is still well short of the Eid peaks, so the record says more about the calendar than about a change in how Egyptians go to the cinema.
The next numbers will settle how far it goes. Saturday is the other half of the Egyptian weekend, and the second Friday, on 20 November, will show whether the audience holds. The first published figures from the Gulf will show whether Helmy travels as well as Egypt’s recent holiday hits.
Sources
- National Media Authority (Maspero), Hadoota box office, 14 November 2026
- Cairo 24, Hadoota EGP12.2m in one day, 14 November 2026
- Al-Masry Al-Youm, Hadoota first on Thursday, 13 November 2026
- Youm7, Hadoota opening day, citing Filmyard, 12 November 2026
- Filmyard, Egyptian daily box office, 13 November 2026, and Hadoota film page (read 14 November 2026)
- Cinema Track, Egyptian daily box office, 13 November 2026 (read 14 November 2026)
- Cinema Track, Hadoota film page
- Cinema Track, El Harifa 2: El Remontada film page
- Al-Ahram Gate, El Harifa 2 non-holiday daily record, 8 December 2024
- Cairo 24, Ahmed Helmy's recent box-office record, November 2026
- Youm7, Ahmed Helmy and Amina Khalil celebrate Hadoota with audiences in the UAE, 8 November 2026
- elCinema, Hadoota (2026) film page and gallery
- xe.com mid-market rates, 13 November 2026 (EGP53.42 to the dollar)