Until recently, the major trends in Nollywood were shooting films within days and weeks, bad acting, unprofessional crew and rudimentary editing. Funding of films was also a very tedious task. Films averagely cost between 10 and 25 million naira,whereas Hollywood producers spend over 1000 times of that on movies that will be classified as low-budget. Cheap gadgets were mostly used and the movies generally bypassed the cinema, going straight to DVD and VCD discs, selling at pirate markets and hawked by the road. The stories were cliché, predictable (thanks to the sound tracks) and far-fetched.
But fortunately, so much has changed for Nigeria’s signature film culture in the last 20 years. Today, the industry is experiencing an influx of innovative directors, brave producers, highly skilled crew and a rush of fresh ideas, all giving the industry a new, internationally appealing outlook. There is now an elite subset of Nollywood that has been called the “New Nollywood” as a lot about how Nigerian films are produced, distributed and marketed is changing. In one of his journal articles, James Tar Tsaaior gives a panoramic description of the New Nollywood as “a new dispensation of big budget films and excellence in sophisticated storytelling with an experimental and improvisational character.” He further observes that it “has also introduced complicated and unpredictable plot structures, more accomplished characterization, and improved picture quality” plus “greater directorial competence and rounded scripts with more technical depth and cultural verisimilitude. There also exists higher professional acumen and integrity and more robust attention to the minutiae of post-production details.”
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Although most Nigerians still find it easier it to acquire Nollywood movies via disc, USB stick, phone-to-phone transfer and cable television, more people are willfully purchasing them online. Movie lovers are buying tickets for cinema viewing and more cinemas are sprouting up in the major cities to meet the hunger for this new sensaation. “The days of relying on DVDs are over—it was a piracy nightmare. Now, this business is about the cinemas and TV,” Kunle Afolayan once said, capturing the business model and evolution of Nollywood.
The present momentum started about a decade ago around the production of pacesetting Figurine (2009) by leading Nigerian cinematographer, Kunle Afolayan. It was one of the films that heralded Nollywood into the present mega phase. Costing about $300,000, it was premiered in local and international cinemas and raked five awards at the African Movie Academy Awards, “Africa’s Oscars”. Afolayan seemed to have woken the industry from its slumber. Nollywood would never be the same again. As if determined to outshine Figurine, several unprecedented films followed in the wake of Figurine. And yes, they outshone Figurine. Ijé: The Journey (2010), Last Flight to Abuja(2012), Phone Swap(2012), Half of a Yellow Sun 2013), Ocotber 1 (2014) and 76 (2016) are but a few of such landmark productions. The tempo had been revved up, a healthy competition started and bars of movie architecture raised. The dawn of a new era had begun.
Kemi Adetiba’s ‘The Wedding Party’ is a typical case study of Nollywood’s financial breakthrough, being the first Nigerian movie to gross above 400 million Naira (US $1.3 million). The opening weekend of ‘The Wedding Party 2: Destination Dubai’ saw the film grossing about 73.3 million Naira (US $202,000) with an attendance that beat ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ in Nigeria. The film would later surpass 300 million Naira (US $840,000) by the first week of January, and was predicted to exceed the previous record, set by the first installment which raked over three billion Naira (US $8.4 million).
At the heart of the unprecedented financial success of the new age Nollywood is an innovation in the model of distributing films — “a movement away from piracy and toward a profit-based business model” which has “affected both the content and the industry’s digital future,” Emily Witt writes in her book, Nollywood: The Making of a Film Empire. Public and private sector investors are now investing heavily in the industry as the industry’s huge economic potential unravels further with each major success. Glamorous, star-studded film premieres are becoming regular page makers in the media. At the back stage, producers and cast members are doing massive cross-country premieres and devising new bold ways to promote their movies, from VIP tickets to buses for movie-goers. Nollywood, formerly thought to be a largely mediocre industry, is gradually winning the hearts of more audiences in Africa and among Africans abroad, a population estimated to be more than 30 million (2014 figures) and increasing.
The global propagation of Nollywood is facilitated by digital platforms such as Netflix which launched its own streaming service in Nigeria in 2016, Afrinolly, a mobile app dedicated to streaming Nollywood titles and iRoko TV which is said to be the world’s largest online distributor of African content, with a database of 5,000 Nollywood films and reaching a global audience of six million in 178 countries. Not only are such platforms promoting Nigerian culture, they also have economic advantages. The industry currently and employs more than a million people, directly or indirectly, and generates a whooping $590 million annually.
Nollywood has been ranked the fifth movie industry in the world, the second largest in terms of output, and the third largest per overall revenues generated. The oncoming global recognition earned by number of productions is now translating to an international acceptance earned by the quality of productions.
The increased patronage of Nigerian films is evident, for example, in Nollywood’s combined box office of over 3.5 billion naira ($11.5 million) in 2016 with 30% of ticket sales accruing from local movies. The proliferation of cinemas means that producers are put on their toes to make movies that build on the success of the previous ones such that each time there is news of a new release, there is so much anticipation and craze to see it.
This transformation is happening, as movies hit the cinemas first, catering to the virtual queues of enamoured Nollywood enthusiasts. The promotion of such movies as ‘Merry Men’ and ‘King of Boys’ are indicators of how contemporary producers are very conscious of the cinemas and making frantic efforts to live up to the expectations of the audiences. The reception of and fever around these movies are sending positive signals back to the makers, as well.
The growth of Nollywood can also be attributed to different dimensions of collaboration which enhanced its popularity. It started as joint productions between regional film industries in Nigeria and their actors to conjunction with especially Ghanaian and other African actors. Today, collaborations are increasing between Nollywood and film cultures in Europe and Hollywood in terms of joint acting, settings in locations abroad and circulation network. There is much catching up to do for producers still stuck with the old ways of making films. Because their productions are inferior to the blockbusters from the New Nollywood, there is pressure to deliver better stuff and to make movies that are as financially rewarding.
Within a space of 20 years, an impressive number of turning point movies with considerable budgets are overwriting the achievements of most of their predecessors. Several quality productions have been relevant enough to be screened at international film festivals around the world. Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival,which premiered some eight Nollywood movies in 2016, London Festival of Nigerian Films (2010) and Nollywood Week Film Festival in Paris are some of such avenues that continue to sell the Nollywood brand to the world.
The story of the new Nollywood is that of a movie industry where quality is having an upper hand, highly trained professionals have more sophisticated gadgets and technology at their disposal, with a huge financial support to produce landmark movies for a hungry global audience that has been spoilt with getting more. With a market now valued at $5.1 billion and a profile that intimidates other counterparts in Africa and beyond, the future of Nollywood is very promising. But then, it is necessary to consider the side effects of the explosion of Nigerian English films. What is the hope of regional sub-industries which continue to use local dialects and whose star actors are coveting English roles? Also, won’t the present trend, favouring mostly the privileged upper middle-class audience, further widen the already wide gap in Nigeria’s social class?
and then