NOLLYWOOD REVIEW: Why Nollywood Is Doing Not Too Good And How This Should Be Tackled.

Have you ever wondered; why Nollywood is doing not too good?

Well, if you are among the people who think Nollywood is at
its peak or Nollywood is doing fine I am sorry to tell you that you are really
mistaken as a matter of fact Nollywood is performing so woeful.

Do you know the highest grossing Nollywood movie ever is
AY’s 30days in Atlanta? The movie which only grossed 200million naira only in the
box office is Nigeria’s highest grossing movie ever, it could not even reach
just 2million dollars? That is so sad to hear. 
The profit movie producers are getting is totally poor which leads to
discouragement in making quality movies.

Nigeria is among the top 3 movie industries in the whole world
that makes the most movies annually the top three which puts India in the No.1
spot, Nigeria in the 2nd spot and America in the 3rd
spot. But Does that mean Nigeria movie industry is bigger than America’s? That
is a capital NO! As we all know the biggest movie industry in the world has
been America for quite a long time and it is still the U.S.  Why? Because the U.S movie industry sells a
lot, and how do they sell? Cinema grossing not just in their country but all
over the world. And how did they get to that level? They make good movies,
quality ones; Actions, Adventures, Romance, Family and all sorts..  And how do they sell exactly?? They put their
movies in cinemas across the world in a few months it starts grossing hundreds of
million dollars after that they start selling the hard copy CDs which is going
to bring another huge set of million dollars, so tell me why the movie
producers wouldn’t want to spend much making another movie??

Now let’s get into the India movie industry Bollywood which
is the second largest movie industry in the world at the moment. To be candid I
have never seen any country that has better story lines than the Bollywood
writers. You now these people really know how to write and make good movies even
though they us their language, you won’t believe an Indian movie grossed over a
hundred million dollars just of recent. And more..  These guys gross well internationally and
locally, some of their movies even gross well in the U.S.

Let’s start talking about the movie budgets, I personally I
like knowing stuffs like this whenever I watch a film I take my time and check everything
about the movie online, you would see an American movie with just 150million
dollars budget getting a cinema gross of as much as $800million and even some
over a billion dollars Isn’t that huge? Why are they getting that much profit?
Because many people pay to watch them at the cinemas. Taking a look at Bollywood
movie budgets too, you would see many of them get as much as a 10million
dollars movie budget some 30-50million dollars budget and at the end of the day
they get at least double of the movie budget as the profit which I find thrilling. In
a case like this I would love to compare India to Nigeria because we have a lot
in common, when it comes to the Population, the culture, even their story lines
and how they make their movies is still somehow related to the Nigerian way.
These people are somehow like us, so if India is making it big why can’t Nigeria be making it big too? See why I think Nollywood isn’t making it big
below.

Firstly, I would like to mention, our movies story lines and
styles really need to improve a lot, and as a matter of fact I quit watching
Nollywood movies when I was 14, why? Because I was starting to understand what
real movies are by then, I was already watching a lot American movies then
which I totally loved I actually prefer watching Yoruba movies to watching
Nollywood movies then. I started watching Nollywood movies again last year when
I started seeing a lot buzz on the internet about Kunle Afolanyan’s October 1st’
movie and another one; “Half of a yellow sun”, I went to the cinema to see these
movies late 2014 and I was a bit impressed with the storyline, style, the movie
graphics and more..  later on I saw many
other Nollywood movies too like; Knocking on heavens door, 30days in Atlanta,
Half of a yellow sun, Make a move and more and then I noticed there have been
little changes in Nollywood which I think is a great thing but these changes
can be said not to be enough considering the kind of level Nollywood is at
right now, seriously I have never watched any Indian movie that has a bad
storyline, these people got it all, their writers are just too brilliant.

So I think Nigerian producers shouldn’t just make movies
because they just want to make a movie but they should make movies for purposes,
they should make movies with targets, they should make movies they think would
wow Nigerian movie lovers, they should stop making the same movie over and over
again.  Nollywood movies can start
grossing heavy in other countries if they can fix the things I mentioned above.

The problem with our movie producers is the same thing that
affects most Nigerians, which is; “Trying to make quick money.” I heard some
Nigerian movie makers make over 5 movies in a year and it’s not that they have
the money in abundance to make those 5 movies but they would patch it all up
and manage to make those movies if it’s of good quality or not, they don’t
care, they just want to make money. Those are the kind of movies that make
people hate Nollywood.

Nollywood movie makers should try hard and find good writers
I believe we got them plenty here in Nigeria, obviously our producers really
don’t care.

Nigerian producers should make action movies; and not the
action movies of robbers robbing and some shits like that, but action movies
that would be so cool even an old man would be interested. Earlier I mentioned
I would like to compare Bollywood to Nollywood so let’s see this, have you guys seen “Krrish”, “Dhoom3”, “Koi Mil Gaya” and more… These are some Indian
action movies I remember, their story lines are just too great these movies grossed
well in the U.S and other countries. 

But should we exactly blame producers alone? Nah! As far as
I am concerned Nollywood does not have very good movie directors, as a director
you should be able to manage things up and perfect a movie without enough
contents, most directors do it the way the producers do also. And not to
mention the sense to fix errors in a movie, even the almighty 30days in Atlanta
has its own obvious error. The ending of the movie was a bit crappy. Let’s take
a look at what happened with the Female lawyer and Akpos, in a right sense of
thinking that woman has no reason to follow Akpos to Nigeria but they did it
that way anyway. I think a good director would find something short that would be an explanation of why she followed Akpos to Nigeria.

Moreover I can say I have never seen any tangible adventure
movie made by Nollywood, all we see is Family and Romance…

Coming to promotion; I would conclude most Nigerian movies
are not well promoted after being made, well, I would say why would you promote
a movie you made for making sake in the first place? We could see how AY’s
30days in Atlanta was well promoted, I can say the movie is a good movie, it
got a lot of positive reviews and with what I saw in the movie I think
the producer spent quite a lot on the movie. So if you do something of quality
you would do all you can to promote and let the world see what you  did, and as a matter of fact
quality things promote themselves, but if you didn’t make something impressive
you wouldn’t bother yourself too much about promoting it.

Lastly, I would say everybody involved in Nollywood I’m
talking; Actors, Producers, Writers, Directors should try and woo Nigerian
movie lovers to start watching their movies in the cinemas, many Nigerians
don’t bother on going to the cinemas to watch movies all they do is wait for
the         Hard copy which piracy has
spoilt its marketing. Filmmakers should let Nigerians know what is up; what
they went through to make that movie and why they should manage to go watch
them at the cinemas. 

And the federal government is so not doing much on piracy.
These people are arming a developing movie industry, so when is it going to get
developed if its film makers are not making any profit.

Nollywood is an industry that can and that will improve
Nigeria’s economy quite well if it becomes developed. Many talented Nigerians
would get the chance to be actors, it wouldn’t be a movie industry where we see
Mercy Johnson, Funke Akindele and others acting a role of a high school or
college student anymore, many young ones would get shots to earn living from
the industry.

Lastly the mother of all; Nigeria’s economy is also
affecting Nollywood and the whole entertainment industry, tell me, is it an unemployed
person that would have time to go see movies at the cinema? Oh No! Nigeria’s
productivity should improve so that people would be employed. Let’s take a look
at this, Nigeria have been working on fully migrating to Digital TV but that
has taken like forever.. Why? Because it would affect many as only a few would
be capable of acquiring digital TV, if this can be fixed and we could fully
migrate to digital TV, It would be another development for Nollywood people
would be able to subscribe to watch not only movies but  TV shows and more on their screens.

I have much to say but can’t type it all. I am a great lover
of movies and I would love to see Nollywood grow to what I picture.

Thanks.

&

Peace…

Article by: Apata D rock follow him on twitter HERE