Nigerian comedian Basketmouth has asserted that Nollywood producers are grossly mismanaging funds provided by global streaming platforms.
According to him, the producers use a major part of the funds allocated for movie production for their personal interest.
Speaking in an interview in Nigeria on Arise TV, Basketmouth stated that streaming platforms had started to fund movie production but many producers use as little as 10% of the budgets allocated for movie production and divert the rest to fund their personal lifestyles.
“When the streaming platforms came in, they gave money to these producers, and I’ll tell you point blank: these producers would take the money $1.5 million or whatever they give them and use about 10% of that money to make the movie,” he said.
Basketmouth further stated that after the producers squandered their part of the money given to them they also turned to demand shares of the money the actors make from streaming platforms.
“Even to the point where the streaming platforms stepped in and said, ‘You know what? We are going to be paying the actors directly,’ these guys would still go behind and tell the actors to pay half of that money back to them. You can verify the information anywhere,” he observed.
Basketmouth argued that the fraudulent practice has taken a serious toll on the quality of Nollywood films.
“So, when you do that and expect your movie to be 100%, it can’t. It’s impossible. But these guys? They’ll cut, buy houses, buy cars. And that’s why when you see our movies, some of our epic movies look like stage plays,” he added.
Basketmouth’s comments come after Kunle Afolayan, a filmmaker, revealed that Netflix has ceased commissioning Nigerian originals.
The filmmaker also lamented that this shift would significantly impact the income of producers who heavily invest in filmmaking.
Source: Ghana/MaxTV/MaxFM/max.com.gh/Joyceline Natally Cudjoe
