Irth to Adapt Korean Bestseller The Kidnapping Day for Arabic Film
Egyptian production and development company Irth is acquiring Korean bestseller The Kidnapping Day for an Arabic-language film, Deadline reported on 22 September 2026. A production and development company buys rights and builds a project from script toward a shoot. Here the plan is a new version in Arabic based on the same book, not a re-release of an existing screen version.
The novel is one of a trio of international books coming to Irth. The company is also finalising rights to a second Korean novel and a Brazilian novel. The titles of those two further books have not been disclosed in the report.
The Kidnapping Day was written by Korean writer Jeong Hai-yeon and published in 2019. It was then made into a television series that ran on Korea's ENA network, a South Korean television channel, in fall 2023. That series stars Yoon Kye-sang and Yuna, according to Prime Video Philippines. Amazon Prime Video acquired that series for select territories, which means it carried the show in some countries and regions rather than everywhere at once.
That streaming launch came quickly after broadcast. The series arrived on Prime Video on 13 September, with Prime Video Philippines material dated 23 September 2023 giving the date. The short gap between television transmission and streaming is now common for Korean drama, where a local channel premieres a show and a global platform follows in chosen markets.
Behind the new film is a young company building its slate. Irth was co-founded by Haitham Dabbour. The company has entered a strategic partnership with Cairo-based MAD Solutions, the Deadline report says. The context is Irth lining up foreign books to develop for Arabic-language screens.
The same book is also on the move in Britain. A UK adaptation of The Kidnapping Day is currently in development at Studio Hamburg UK, an independent British production company, according to Studio Hamburg UK. Development means the project is being prepared, with a script and production plan still to be locked. It is separate from the Arabic-language film.
What makes this stand out is the distance one story has travelled. A 2019 Korean novel became a 2023 Korean series with international streaming distribution. Now it is being rebuilt as an Arabic-language feature, with a separate British version also in preparation.
For viewers, no background is needed to follow the chain. A publisher releases a book. A broadcaster turns it into a series. A producer in another country buys the rights to retell it in a new language for a new audience. That is what is happening here, and the credits will tell the rest as directors and casts are set.
