7 Dogs held its red carpet premiere in Cairo on May 22nd ahead of its regional release on May 27th, and by the time the cast walked in, the film had already made history twice before a single ticket was sold. During production in Riyadh, the crew detonated 350 kilograms of explosives, 19,000 litres of petrol, and 20 tonnes of bentonite in a single take, breaking two Guinness World Records: the largest film stunt explosion in cinema history and the most high explosives detonated in a single film take, dethroning both Spectre and No Time to Die. No CGI. The records are real.
The Film
Directed by Moroccan-Belgian duo Adil El-Arbi and Bilall Fallah, the pair behind Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and written by Mohamed El-Dabbah from a story by Saudi General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki Al-Sheikh, 7 Dogs is a buddy-cop action thriller set across the Middle East. Ahmed Ezz plays an Interpol officer forced into an uneasy alliance with Karim Abdel Aziz, who plays a senior figure in a covert global crime syndicate called 7 Dogs. Together, they must stop a deadly new drug called Pink Lady from sweeping the region. The international cast includes Monica Bellucci, Giancarlo Esposito, Salman Khan, Sanjay Dutt, and Max Huang. The stunt team behind John Wick worked on the action sequences.
What It Represents
The film is being positioned as the most expensive Arabic film ever made, with a reported budget that climbed past $70 million through reshoots, and it is the clearest signal yet of Saudi Arabia’s ambition to produce action cinema that competes on a genuinely global scale. Shot almost entirely in and around Riyadh at Al-Hosn Big Time Studios, produced by Sela and sponsored by the GEA and Riyadh Season, the film is a Saudi-led production in every meaningful sense. It opens in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and across the region on May 27th, with India on May 28th and Turkey on June 25th.
