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The Blue Elephant (2014) is an Egyptian thriller-horror-fantasy mash-up based on the 2012 eponymous novel by Egyptian writer Ahmed Mourad. The book was the best-selling novel at the Cairo International Book Fair in 2013 and shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014. The director Marwan Hamed was inspired to adapt the book noting “We do not do thrillers and fantasy films in Egypt and I love these genres”.

In adapting his books to film, Mourad said: “The reading audience, which represents two percent of the Egyptian society, is not the same as the cinema audience, which represents 35-40 percent of the Egyptian people. I need to be aware of the required criteria [for adaptation], and I need to view the text as something that is not sacred, susceptible to criticism — change and tweaking to fit the cinema”.

The movie features Karim Abdel Aziz, Khaled El Sawy, and Nelly Karim, among Egypt’s biggest film stars, and follows a troubled psychiatrist who returns to his post at a psychiatric hospital after 5 years following the death of his wife and daughter. Discovering that a patient and old friend is accused of murdering his wife, Yehia becomes enmeshed in a tangled web of mystery as he tries to save his friend and in the process, himself. The film was a box-office success in Egypt and the Arab region and its 2019 sequel Blue Elephant 2 went on to become the highest-grossing film in Egypt. In 2023 Mourad confirmed that a third installment of the franchise was in development.