Meet El Sobky Group, Egypt's Film Mafia

Their original trade is meat shop, they were butchers. Then the family decided to enter the film making business, at first they butchered the Egyptian industry with shitty movies, now that they grew large, they are butchering the competition.

Mohamed El Sobky and his clan produce 7 of 10 Egyptian movies, they have the relationships with theaters to get their movies screened there. They hire no talents and then call is a movie, a local dancer, a local singer, a cute Lebanese  a chubby fat guy to crack jokes, a nerd and a bully. Those are the characters in El Sobky movies, they tell the same story over and over.

They do not make movies for messages or for the sake of art, they just want a quick buck and they make their money's worth and make a good profit. Their movies is something critics love to hate, as they are over the top with the sex jokes and showing ghetto Egyptian parts of town. They have said in the past, "We do not like art movies, they do not make money" and they are right.

But as of last the year El Sobky is changing their playbook  they still make mostly silly comedies and singing movies that plays like a wedding. They have also greenlit at least two serious movies this Eid season, and they seem to have gotten good reviews. The surprise is that those serious movies, made some money, but not a lot compared to the supported to be funny blockbusters. Kareem El Sobky is spearheading those movies and he works to see this movies come to light. They are now producing a film for Ahmed Mekky, Egyptian most creative actor

The competing film studios are compiling that the four leading Eid movies are the four movies produced by El Sobky Studios. The two other movies have tanked. The rivals are accusing the company of using dirty tactics. According to a source the people who sell at the tickets booth have been turning people away from the other movies by saying the movies are sold out when in face they are not. If true this is a problem.

The four movies, El Soby produced for the Eid are "ساعة و نص" و"مهمة فى فيلم قديم" و "عبده موتة" والآنسة مامي".  Two of those movies have been called silly and an insult to The Egyptian cinema industry. The other studios have released two movies that did not manage to make much cash at the box office ""جوة اللعبة "و "برتيتا"."

Also, there are other movie houses out there, but since Egypt is an sticky situation  most investors are not putting money for movies. El Sobky knows how to make movies for less, and they are able to cut their costs, and take a risk. Some of their success can be attributed to their know how of those marginalized communities in Egypt, they know how to attract those people to the movies--use music with local singers who sing in simple street slang.

عبده موتة ايوه ايوه شحته كاريكا وزه اورتيجا اوكا 8%