By Patience Chat Moses
The Nigerian film industry, popularly known as Nollywood, has upstaged the global movie world with its glaring improvement in innovation, imagination, prolific performance and quality in production.
Specifically, the industry is now identified globally as the most prolific industry with consistent production of more than 2000 titles in the country’s three major languages rendered every year since 2008.
Over the years, the industry has gradually witnessed transformation in terms of high quality production, perfect sound and technical details, high profile cast, organized distribution, cinematography and every other detail that make global viewers to go after other High rated film industries.
This has placed Nollywood as the second largest film industry in global revenue earnings, with an estimated worth of about $6.4 billion.
Talking about increase in quality and standard of production, it is obvious that producers in Nollywood have become intentional about producing high rated movies. The recent movies released this year attest to this. Nigerian movies are now being streamed on popular movie distribution platform, Netflix which shows that they are of great quality.
Nevertheless, these improvements can be attributed to the amount of money spent by producers to produce these movies.
According to the Cinema Exhibition Association of Nigeria (CEAN), “Orisa”, a 2023 Odunlade Adekola Film is the highest-grossing Nollywood movie in 2023 so far.
The FilmOne Studio production is worth N60 million and a gross domestic value of N170 million.
“Orisa” tells the story of a king who goes into exile, losing his crown and his deity. When he loses respect for his people and the gods, he is repaid with insanity. Trouble befalls him further when a terrorist whom he struck a deal with once returns for a ravenous payback.
Orisa was directed by Odunlade Adekola, in partnership with Odunlade Adekola Film Production and FilmOne. Orisa, and originally released on the 21st of July, 2023 and it still streams in cinemas today.
Next on the list is “The Kujus Again”, the tale of a loving, yet problematic family. In the movie, the Kujus all decide to organize a wedding ceremony first by throwing a relatively small party to announce the engagement of Mauyon (Kunle Remi) and Lily (Sophie Alakija). While the family begins planning the wedding hoping to sort out their differences and bring them together, series of mistakes were made.
The movie was produced with a budget of N53 million.
The list wouldn’t be complete without the mention of yet another Biodun Stephen’s production “Big Love.”
The movie, with a budget of N47 million tells the love story of Timini Egbuson (Adil) and Bimbo Ademoye (Adina). Adil meets Adina and soon falls in love with her. Adina is an independent woman struggling to make ends meet at a graduate training camp.
Adina’s fear begins to eat her alive and she begins doubting if love is truly enough.
The movie was released June 28th, 2023 and emerged No 1 Nollywood Movie. Overall, the Inkblot production was produced with a budget of N47 million.
“Love In A Pandemic” is next in line. It tells the love story of Bolanle Davis (Nancy Isime) who meets the man of her dreams; Alex (Deyemi Okanlawon) but doesn’t know how her love life would survive during the most trying time of human existence: The COVID 19 pandemic.
In partnership with Bleeding Heart Production and FilmOne, “Love In A Pandemic” has a budget of about N46 million.
‘The Bride Price” is another high budget movie. Released on May 5th, 2023, by Astra TV Africa, the movie boasts of a gross of N30 million for production.
The Bride Price tells the story of a husband who realizes that he may have made the mistake of cutting off his wife’s family from their lives.
The storyline of this movie shows the downside of pride.
“Jagun Jagun: The Warrior” should have occupied first place in our list. However, reflecting on the massive endeavor, the producer of the movie, Femi Adebayo noted that, “Jagun Jagun is a multi-billion naira project and I can’t say the exact amount I spent on shooting it.
“I used the proceeds of “Agbeshinkole” to produce “Jagun Jagun”. I was working on not getting funded by finance houses and individuals. At a point, I was out of finance and because I had faith that the project would work, I sold my properties,” . He said this on his Instagram account When he was asked how much it cost him to produce the movie.
The Yoruba epic action tells the story of a young man who joins an elite army in his bid to become a powerful warrior and win the heart of a woman. On his quest, he attracts the wrath of a bloodthirsty warlord who feels threatened by him. Adedimeji Lateef, Bimbo Ademoye, Fathia Balogun and Mr Macaroni feature in this new epic film.
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 and that quality production though capital intensive will also guarantee massive return of investment to producers.