Let’s Talk Numbers! The Impending Brouhaha at The Nollywood Box Office

It’s been an interesting year for nollywood with numerous embarrassments releasing one after the other at the cinemas all year long – at least until King of Boys came to save the day. Then there was December!

It was as if most of the serious filmmakers (and some that slipped through) were waiting for the December boost to release their movies at the cinemas. The only problem was that they all had the same genius idea. Thereby leaving us with a December release list that looked like this:

• Power of One – December 7
• Kasala – December 7
• Heaven On My Mind – December 7
• Chief Daddy – December 14
• God Calling – December 21
• Lionheart – December 21
• Up North – December 28
• Knock Out Blessing – December 28

You may now ask, “haba! Haven’t you people been complaining that there is no good movie to watch? Now that they have given you EIGHT good options you are complaining?” You have missed the point. No one is as excited as we are for the content being released in cinemas this December. 62.5% of the movies being released (5 out of the 8 – you can guess which ones) are movies that could possibly build the framework for the future of nollywood. The creation and distribution of these movies are not the problem, the problem is the release date.

Why is this a problem you may ask?

Let’s run the numbers. In a regular week, if there are 10 movies showing at the cinema, maybe 2 of them are nollywood movies. And for the purposes of this example, let’s assume there are 10 people who have come to the cinema and are open to seeing a nollywood movie. Assuming equal production and general quality, there’s a 50% chance for Movie A to be seen and a 50% chance for Movie B to be seen (granted we are not taking into consideration things like star power and marketing impact). If movie tickets are N1,500 per ticket, then Movie A would earn N7,500 that day and so would Movie B.

In a month like this December though, adjusting for the holiday effect, let’s assume instead of 10 people now 30 people are open to seeing a nollywood movie at the cinemas. They have 8 different movie options. Again, taking same assumptions for quality and disregarding star power and advertising, let’s assume there’s an equal chance of every movie being seen. If movie tickets are N1,500 per ticket, even with the increase in audience size each movie would be making N5,625 a day. Using these numbers, over a 30 day period – assuming the same numbers hold for all 30 days (which is highly unlikely), and assuming the movie even runs at the cinema for all 30 days – Movie A would earn N225,000 in 30 days any other month but instead earn N168,750 in a December like this. Even with our imperfect numbers, that’s a N56,250 loss.

Now when you account for left field movies like the no-star-power “Kasala” running against the near-ensemble-cast in “Heaven On My Mind” and the Tu Face touted “Power of One”, what are the chances for Kasala? What are its chances of getting noticed? What are its chances of reaching a new audience? What are its chances of recouping costs? And if this is the movie that leads us into a new era of nollywood films, no matter how acclaimed it is in niche circles, it still needs acknowledgement of the average viewer.

Then going from that weekend to Chief Daddy in the second week of December? With that star power what are the odds that anyone remembers the movies released the week prior?

Just a note for those who don’t know, movies are mostly released on the weekends with Friday as Day 1, Saturday as Day 2 and Sunday as Day 3, and all these together constitute the opening weekend. Why is the opening weekend so important when a movie is set to run for 4-6 weeks?

Today, most movies make a whopping one-third of their entire domestic box office gross during opening weekend.

[source: Eller and Friedman].

No matter how much star power you have, no matter how great your marketing strategy was, the ratio of buttocks to seat on week one is the greatest determinant of what the rest of your cinema run will look like. We aren’t saying there are no exceptions, but the word of mouth and the public appeal from week one (or dare I say, Day 1) will drive you through the rest of your cinema run. And if movies like Kasala are barely given a chance on Day 1 – talk less of opening weekend – then annihilated by the next week’s release, what do we hope to achieve?

On the weekend of December 21st, the long awaited Genevieve Nnaji film “Lionheart” releases on the same weekend as the visually striking “God Calling”. Who do you think takes the beating? And what do you think investors will take away from that experiment on making a “different” type of nollywood movie?

But I guess these are the hunger games in more ways than one, so “may the odds ever be in your favor”. See you on Netflix!