DID YOU KNOW? Hollywood films accounted for 75% of Nigeria’s box office revenue in March

Patrick Lee, the president of Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN), on Tuesday, announced that Hollywood movies accounted for 75% of revenue generated by the country’s box office in March 2022.

He also disclosed that the box office generated N346.6 million from tickets sold across the country last month.

The figure, according to him, represents a 15 percent increase in ticket sales for March 2022, compared to N301.48 million generated in February 2022.

Lee also said it represents an 83.4 percent increase, compared to the N189 million CEAN realised in March last year.

Giving a further breakdown of the figure, the CEAN president said ‘The Batman’, a Warner Bros film, accounts for 39% of the total revenue generated.

“The Batman’ sold the highest number of tickets accounting for 39 percent of box office revenue for the month of March,” he said.

“Of the 41 films shown in Nigeria cinemas in the month of March, Hollywood accounted for 75 percent of revenues despite having only 14 titles.”

TheCable Lifestyle checked the March report on the CEAN website to ascertain how Nigerian films fared against that of Hollywood.

Findings showed that with 15 titles, Nollywood films generated a total of N74, 844, 707 while Hollywood — with 14 titles — grossed more than N259, 955, 766.

This means Nollywood grossed 21.6% of the N346.6 million recorded by the box office in the month of March.

According to the data, six Nigerian movies that made it to the top five of “top 20 film releases” between March 4 and 31 grossed N44, 123, 600.

Within the same duration, ‘Batman’ alone generated N146, 052, 195 – three times the amount earned by Nollywood films.

The Nollywood films are ‘American King’, ‘Cake’, ‘City Hustlers’, ‘Mama Big Stick’, ‘Simple Lie’, ‘Boycott’, and ‘Dejavu’.

In its first week, ‘Simple Lie’ — the highest-grossing Nigerian film of the month — raked in N15, 266, 250, the same week ‘Batman’,  which had been released three weeks before (March 4) earned N16, 183, 630, its lowest-earning of the month.

Meanwhile, ‘Batman’ recorded N65, 938, 144 in its first week.

Corroborating this, ‘Spiderman: No Way Home’, which was released on December 13, 2021, raked in N400 million at the Nigerian box office within two weeks.

The data showed Nigerians are more interested in foreign movies, especially American films, than the ones that are shot and produced in the country.

Lee had in 2019 made a similar argument. Speaking at the maiden edition of Film4Life conference, the CEAN president said Nollywood responds to the needs of its audience.

“Based on the research, as an exhibitor, I have to take that information very seriously. And so, when I’m doing my scheduling, I have to put that into consideration. For instance, if I have an action movie, be it a Hollywood film, the truth of the matter is that it’s what my customers want to see,” he had said.

“Unfortunately, in terms of Nollywood, we haven’t gotten to that point of special effect. So, we have to compensate with something else. We haven’t reached the level where we can pay a huge amount of money to be able to get to that special effect level.”