Femi Adebayo: ‘King of Thieves’ has made N170m in just 3 weeks in cinema

Femi Adebayo says ‘King of Thieves’ (Agesinkole) has generated over N170 million in the first three weeks of its cinema debut.

The actor made this known in an interview with NAN on Sunday in Ilorin, Kwara state capital.

Adebayo said the movie, which cost over N100 million to produce, made more than N43 million in its first three days.

He said the plan was to leave the film in the cinemas for two months where it’s expected to make no less than N200 million.

“In the history of Nollywood, no movie has ever made N43 million in three days of its opening at the cinema, that is an amount of money some movies will make in three months,” Adebayo said.

“The movie has actually paved the way for many providers and producers that are producing indigenous content.”

The filmmaker, who noted that the movie took him over a year to produce, described the project as a huge success.

Adebayo said it had always been his ambition to work on the movie.

“The plan was to do a huge movie that will remind people of the beauty of Yoruba culture and I waited till it was time,” he added.

“My intention was to showcase the beauty of Yoruba culture to the entire world and at the same time to be able to say one or two things about the society, especially our leaders.

“When I was much younger, I had the opportunity to see the beautiful works of Albert Ogunde, he showcased that beauty in Yoruba culture being a Yoruba man.”

Talking about the challenges faced during production, Adebayo said he had to embark on wide research on Ifa.

He further said finding a location to shoot the film took a lot of time.

“I saw everything that fascinated me in the location we later got, the village, the river,” he said.

“I saw almost 70 percent of my movie in there even though we had to build more, our caster crew were scared because of insecurity and we had to beef up security.

“If you look at the cast, we had A-list actors. It was challenging to get their time together. Waiting for them to have a uniform timing took almost one and half years to plan the movie.”

‘King of thieves’ is an epic tale of Agesinkole, an all-powerful bandit, and his reign of terror in the Ajeromi kingdom.

Adedimeji Lateef, Aisha Lawal, Broda Shaggi, Ibrahim Chatta, Mr Macaroni, Odunlade Adekola, Toyin Abraham Ajeyemis, and Peju Ogunmola star in the movie.