Netflix Sets ‘Perfect Strangers’ Remake as Streamer’s First Arabic Film

Lebanese actor and director Nadine Labaki and Egyptian star Mona Zaki lead the cast based on the hit Italian film

Perfect Strangers
RUDY BOU CHEBEL /NETFLIX | Copyright: © 2021 Netflix, Inc.

Netflix will release its first ever original film in Arabic next month, a remake of the Italian hit movie “Perfect Strangers.”

“Perfect Strangers,” the 2016 film from director Paolo Genevese, has been remade 18 times across countries such as France, Spain, South Korea, Germany, Greece and more, making it the most remade film ever. Now, the Arabic version will gather up a cast of Pan-Arab talent, as led by Lebanese director and actor Nadine Labaki (“Capernaum”) and Egyptian star Mona Zaki.

Also starring in the new “Perfect Strangers” are Georges Khabbaz, Adel Karam, Fouad Yammine and Diamand Abou Abboud. The film will be directed by first-time filmmaker Wissam Smayra.

The film is the story of a group of friends at dinner where the entertainment for the evening becomes the friends’ plan to share everything on their phones, including emails, photos, texts and voicemails as they come in. What starts out as fun quickly unfolds into an uncharted path of untold secrets that reveals more than what they wish to share.

“Perfect Strangers” is expected to be released on January 20, 2022 and will be available in 190 countries. The film is produced by Front Row Filmed Entertainment, Film Clinic, Empire Entertainment and Yalla Yalla and is the first of many films produced by Front Row as part of a first look deal signed with Netflix. 

The original “Perfect Strangers” grossed $31 million internationally, and the subsequent remakes have together grossed a combined $270 million worldwide.

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