Prospects for Nollywood in 2024: A Year in Review and a Look Ahead
This was supposed to be one segment of a 5 Things post but it got longer and longer and as such it became its own post. I was reviewing the Nollywood Theatrical Scorecard as 2023 drew to a close. It was a good year as Nollywood releases emerged as the primary driver of growth in the West African Theatrical Subsector with revenues that soared to a record N2.6 billion, up 24% from N2.1 billion in 2022.
Several achievements underscored 2023’s success, but primarily it was due to a record number of films grossing over N100 million: A Tribe Called Judah, Battle of Buka Street spillover, Ijakumo Spillover, Malaika, Orisa, Merry Men 3, and Ada Omo Daddy — to name them all, and a strong performance by the rest of mid-tier performers (my usual defintion of this being films selling roughly 10k — 50k tickets ). This combination led to Nollywood surpassing the previous year’s numbers and pushing the overall box office up despite the fall in the performance of overall Hollywood content. Nollywood did not fully save the sector however, given that the overall theatrical market grew just 2%, despite its strong performance. The reward for this performance was a record 37% market share in a non-COVID affected year and a broader optimism all around.
However a deeper dive into these record-breaking numbers reveals a concentration risk that cannot be ignored. Much of the year’s success is heavily concentrated in the hands of a few key producers, notably Funke Akindele and Toyin Abraham, whose films alone accounted for 46% of Nollywood’s total box office gross.
Whilst the 20 midsize hits did contribute N1 billion (38%, of theatrical grosses) and grossed between N130m and N20m: Orisa, Merry Men 3, Ada Omo Daddy, Kesari, Something Like Gold, Meet the Kujus, A Weekend To Forget, Afamefuna, Big Love, Love In A Pandemic, Domitilla, Honey Money, A Bag of Trouble, Love Lust and Other Things, Adire, The Bride Price, Bank Alert, Hotel Labamba, Different Strokes, and Small Talk, to name them all, these films need to significantly improve their performance over the next few years in order for the industry to reduce the reliance on the super producers thereby reducing the inherent volatility that could put at risk the hard worn gains of the past few years.
My estimate is that these types of mid-size releases need to go from contributing N1 billion to box office to contributing N2 billion to N2.5 billion by 2025. After all these mid-size theatrical releases, while less hyped than their blockbuster counterparts (loosely defined as films that sell 100k tickets and above — films that sell between 50k and 100k tickets are simply hits and we don’t have enough of those either), form the backbone of a robust cinematic ecosystem and they must continue to be supported.
In addition to building out mid-size hits the subsector needs to broaden its release windows. Historically, a significant portion of Nollywood’s box office is concentrated in the December/January period, a strategy that, while lucrative, leaves revenue on the table during other parts of the year. It feels like ancient history now, but this window did not exist prior to 2015.
However the string of hits starting from Fifty in 2015, continuing through The Wedding Party Series in 2016/2017, Chief Daddy in 2018, exploding into the multi-title year of Sugar Rush/Merry Men 2/Your Excellency in 2019, the record breaking year of Omo Ghetto/Quam’s Money in 2020, the more muted year of Christmas In Miami/Aki and Paw Paw in 2021, and then the current pattern established by Battle of Buka Street/Ijakumo in 2022, and continued by Tribe of Judah/Malaika and Ada Omo Daddy in 2023, is what created and sustained the window. The audience has been primed to wait to watch the big Nollywood films in December/January. Expanding the release calendar will not only smooth revenue streams but also provide audiences with a more consistent offering of content, thereby reinforcing cinema-going habits.
An additional silver lining from the sector’s growth trajectory is that marketing budgets can comfortably go up. As the saying goes, “You have to spend money to make money,” and now the budgets are “budgeting”. As money becomes less of an issue the matter now becomes, how and where that money is spent in order to make it the “difference maker.” Optimizing marketing spend therefore, is now the goal. It’s not just about increasing budgets but also about leveraging data and insights to target audiences more effectively and convert interest into box office sales. We wish the marketing teams of the Distributors and Producers well in this quest.
Looking ahead, the narrative for Nollywood in theatres in 2024 and beyond is one of cautious optimism. The subsector is fresh off a record year and is ready for further growth but there is a lot of work to be done before the subsector lives up to its full potential. How well it does that work will not only define the year ahead but also set the stage for the future. It is easy to say that it is only a matter of time before West African Cinema is made up of majority Nollywood grosses, but it is very hard to do and it requires the efforts of every member of the value chain: Exhibitors, Distributors, and Producers to make this happen.
There’s a lot of work to be done.
Let’s get to it.
Merry Christmas.
