Yinka Ade-Aluko, the Chief Executive at Doodle-Film Hub Ltd., says the company’s research findings have revealed that cinema in Nigeria is the most expensive worldwide because it is not affordable and accessible to average Nigerians.
Mr Ade-Aluko, a creative and film entrepreneur, disclosed this on Sunday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He said: “It would interest you to know that our research analysis and results established that cinema in Nigeria is the most expensive in the world – It is not affordable and inaccessible to average Nigerians.
“With a monthly N30,000 minimum wage, a movie ticket costs two days’ earnings of an average Nigerian; that is unacceptable! In Hollywood and Bollywood, which Nollywood claims to move along with cinema, tickets only cost around an hour of their daily wages. These are possible because both industries were patterned to their peculiarities as to their countries’ economies and people; their industries and sub-sectors as well as their markets and marketplace.”
Talking numbers
Mr Ade-Aluko said one would wonder why and how only less than 0.5 per cent of our 200 million plus population and less than 1 per cent of market size/potential saw Funke Akindele’s ‘A Tribe Called Judah’ at the cinemas.
“That means just around 300,000 people who went to see our highest-grossed movie ever – The Battle On Buka Street by Funke Akindele – to me, it’s ridiculous. This is because Hollywood and Bollywood’s grossed movies attracted around 35 per cent of their respective populations.
“And the answer to this anomaly is simple! Most movie-lovers and potential cinema-goers in Nigeria who are youths and students could not afford to go to the cinema.”
The film executive said it is ridiculous that Nollywood has cinemas and significant movie releases do not break even.
‘‘A cinema that only attracts 300,000 of the 70 million industry market size. A cinema that mistreats filmmakers and rewards actors unkindly. A cinema where production budgets are high-priced, and movie tickets are overpriced.
READ ALSO: Funke Akindele’s film responsible for 14% of Nigerian cinemas’ 2023 earnings
“A cinema that focuses on the elites/middle-class and ignores the larger market, mainly youths. It is a cinema that does not appreciate new/raw ideas and talents and denies young and skilled filmmakers’ entries into the mainstream. These, to us, is unacceptable.”
Ade-Aluko said that Doodle-Film Hub Ltd was established to re-direct, re-pattern and re-position Nollywood Cinema by mapping out the more extensive market to decentralise, domesticate and democratise the cinema.
“We’re about doing with cinema what Henry Ford did more than 100 years ago with automobiles and Bill Gates did about 50 years ago with computers by introducing a mass production and mass consumption model of cinema through mass mobilisation of the youth.
“I must say, great things are about to happen in the Nigerian film industry because we’re launching Nollywood’s largest and biggest investment intervention ever,” he said.
(NAN)
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