Nollywood soars on big budget films

The Nigerian film industry (popularly known as Nollywood) has literally upstaged the global movie world through its innovation, imaginativeness, and prolific performance. Specifically, the industry is now globally adjudged as the most prolific with consistent production of more than 2000 titles in the country’s three major languages rendered every year since 2008.

This has placed Nollywood as the third in global revenue earnings, with receipts over the years ranging between US$300m and US$800m in the recent past to the extent that the practitioners and businessmen from Hollywood and other global equivalents can no longer ignore the industry as is being reflected in several collaboration movie works.

However, there are a few Nigerian movies that truly upstaged global entertainment with high quality production, perfect sound and technical details, high profile cast, organised distribution and every other detail that make global viewers to go after Hollywood movies.

The movies are so because of their high budget production and are proving the fact that some Nigerian movie directors and producers have come of age.

Foremost among them is Obi Emelonye’s ‘Last Flight to Abuja’.  It cost $250,000 to make the film, a cost that is more than six times the typical budget in Nollywood, an industry known for shoddy shoots, poor production and filmmakers churning out features en masse to a nation of more than 160 million people, Africa’s most populous.

But the return on investment of the film was massive. Yielding $350, 000 with premieres in five cinemas in Nigeria, 10 cinemas in London, ‘Last Flight to Abuja’ was the highest-grossing West African film last year.

Of course, this year will see the release of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’, an adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel. When released, the film which cost $9 million to produce will be the most expensive movie filmed in Nigeria. Set during the country’s civil war in the 1960s, it cost $9 million.

Also, the $200,000 ‘Anchor Baby’ produced by Lonzo Nzekwe is another Nollywood high budget film. “Anchor Baby,” a drama about a Nigerian couple illegally living in the U.S., recouped the $200,000 it cost and made a small profit.

Yet, ‘Mirror Boy’ another high budget film produced by Obi Emelonye saw the producer and sponsors mainly family members and friends of Emelonye smiling to the bank.

The film which cost over $200,000 realised almost double the cost at various screenings at Silverbird Cinemas in Ghana,  especially at the 10 cinemas operated by Odeon Cinemas  across the UK,  where  adult paid £8, children £6, students £7, family £25, to watch the premiere and besides revenue from  screenings at top cinemas across Nigeria.

Kunle Afolayan’s ‘Figurine’, and ‘October 1’, which both won awards at international film festivals are also high budget films that are worthy of mention. The creative Nigerian filmmaker wooed investors who made sure funding was available for their world-class production.

‘Dr. Bello’ by Tony Abulu sponsored by Nexim Bank, was another high budget film that upstaged global viewers at its premiere. The film which cost over N10 million to produce through the Nigerian Creative and Entertainment Industry Stimulation Loan Scheme administered by Nexim Bank further took quality in Nigerian films to a more global appealing level.

It would be recalled that Roberts Orya, Managing Director, Nigerian Export and Import Bank (NEXIM) insisted that the bank would not rest on its oars in pooling resources to better the lot of the creative industry and its practitioners.

The MD quoted the total funding support to the Nigerian Creative Industry (of which Nollywood belongs) by NEXIM was at over N778.5million, with applications for over N26billion under processing.