Apparently the quality of Nigerian movies is one of those things that is hard to fathom. I've heard numerous people say that they cannot understand why an industry that is rumored to earn $2 billion a year produces movies of a quality that only the kindest of critics would call crap. People always insist that there is a better way for Nollywood, that there is a way for Nollywood to produce higher quality movies and still make the kind of profits that they are making. There is a way to do this, but it means deviating from the standard principle of Nollywood economics: that every movie has to make a profit.

The starting point to understanding Nollywood economics or Nollynomics, is that the average units shipped is the guiding light. According to a Nollywood thing I read, and a few other confirming conversations, the average movie sells about 50,000 copies while a blockbuster (eg Jenifa) can sell upwards of 500,000 copies. This means that at N200 a pop, the average movie makes about N10 million in revenue while some movies can make over N100 million.

The second thing to understand is that it is mainly the marketer that makes this revenue not the producer. If the producer funds the movie himself, he then sells it to a marketer to distribute, or the marketer funds and distributes the movie. The producers do get a cut of the total distribution revenue if they funded the movie but it is never what it should be.

So if every movie has to make a profit, the marketer makes his plans based on N10 million and not N100 million. This means he prices accordingly. Which means that the if he is aiming for a 50% profit margin he will be willing to pay about N7.5 million for your movie as a producer or spend N7.5 million himself to finance a movie.

Now if it is a producer financed movie, the producer has to make a profit on the money he has spent. Which means a budget of about N5 million and a N2.5 million profit when he sells to the marketer. So this leads to the Nollywood trend that movies funded directly by marketers are actually of "higher" quality than those financed by producers.

The need to maximise the units shipped results in the "sequel-itis" that inflicts Nollywood, after all for a slight increase in cost, you can double, triple or quadruple the units shipped. And if you have a blockbuster Part I...

Piracy does not affect the economics in the way people think because Pirates are not interested in the run of the mill movies, they are only interested in the blockbusters. So as a marketer you can generally capture most, if not all, of the value of the average Nollywood movie. However of a 500,000 unit blockbuster, the marketer may sell 300,000 of those units. So the marketer doesn't like pirates but the pirates are creaming off profits and not necessarily causing losses.

The international and tv rights (think Africa Magic) do not impact the numbers because most people treat it as jara these days, especially since the tv rights are apparently stingy. So no push to increase quality based on these audiences.

The way to improve quality is for Nollywood to have a paradigm shift. Basically the participants have to stop thinking that every movie has to make a profit, and to move towards the blockbuster model where most movies lose money and the blockbusters make up for it. Judging by the experiences of Hollywood and Bollywood, the blockuster model will eventually win out. However since there has been no credible evidence to show that the number of blockbusters would go up if the quality level increased, there is no incentive to move to the new system just yet. So all you quality buffs should tell the Nollywood peeps to stop making big budget failures like Amazing Grace that are now used to argue that the Nigerian populace does not want quality :D

P.S. I support an "action thriller" as the first "big budget" blockbuster :D

Even by my recently lax standards it has been a long time since I have shuffled onto these pages to apologise for my absences. So consider this couple of sentences an apology, and lets dive right in:

So a couple of weeks ago I heard a story about informing on infidelity. So Lady A's best friend was getting married, and it came to her attention that her friend's intended was a serial cheater in the best Naija style. Lady A wrestled with it for a bit, but decided that her friend should have all the information before deciding. Her friend went ahead with the wedding and in the process their friendship was wrecked. Lady A coming to terms with the aftermath consoled herself that her consicience was clear.

Under the premise of "the more information the better" it is clear that Lady A was right to tell her friend about her beau's infidelity. Lady A had "provable intelligence" (it's in quotes cos she wasn't in the room) and so she had a duty to tell her friend. However there are tons of people who in the name of needing a "clear conscience" would tell their friends about their misgivings about the intended even in situations that are not as clear cut.

My take on this is simple: When someone asks you about their intended, you act like guys are trained to answer "do I look fat in this?" Unless you have concrete proof of infidelity or violence or some such it is not your place to give an opinion.

I have heard the argument that real friends can have constructive conversations in which an opinion can play a role. After all constructive conversations are the bedrock of any relationship. However in my experience, the only constructive conversation you can have about relationships is where the friend employs the art of empathic listening. The thing about empathic listening is that the listener does not give an opinion. The goal is to provide a sounding board for the person to come to terms with the issues that they are having.

For clarity, I have an example of where I would be tempted to give an opinion:

I think that every woman who is dating a man who is against her financial independence should run for the hills. However if a friend in this situation asked me if she should marry the guy, I would not tell her that she should run.

What would you do and why?