Bright Okpocha, popularly known as Basketmouth, a Nigerian comedian and filmmaker, believes that the quality of Nigerian films has suffered as a result of Nollywood producers’ alleged mismanagement of money given by international streaming services.
The performer claimed in a recent appearance on Arise TV, available to BrandSpur Nigeria news today, that many producers misappropriate large amounts of the funding allocated for film production, using the money for their benefit. His claims hold that only a small portion of the money is used to make the movie.
Continuing, he said: “When the streaming platforms came in, they gave money to these producers, and I’ll tell you point blank: these producers would take the money—$1.5 million or whatever they give them—and use about 10% of that money to make the movie.”
He added that streaming services choose to compensate actors directly to maintain openness after learning about these purported wrongdoings. However, by forcing actors to refund a portion of their compensation, producers allegedly came up with a strategy to carry on the deception.
Basketmouth went on to say: “Even to the point where the streaming platforms stepped in and said, ‘You know what? We are going to be paying the actors directly,’ these guys would still go behind and tell the actors to pay half of that money back to them. You can verify the information anywhere.”
Basketmouth contended that poor financial management has had a major impact on Nollywood film quality, with some epic projects coming out as mediocre.
Furthering, he had this to say: “So, when you do that and expect your movie to be 100%, it can’t. It’s impossible. But these guys? They’ll cut, buy houses, buy cars. And that’s why when you see our movies, some of our epic movies look like stage plays.”
At the same time, Netflix, the streaming service that provides a vast selection of award-winning TV series, films, animation, documentaries, and more on thousands of internet-connected devices, is deciding to reduce the amount of original content it produces.
However, a spokesman emailed in response to rumors that the streaming behemoth was leaving Nigeria, saying: “We are not exiting Nigeria. We will continue to invest in Nigerian stories to delight our members.”
