The emergence of home video business created a negative effect on cinema ventures in the past as many of the notable cinema houses were forced to close down.
However, despite the sluggish economic growth and shrinking consumer wallet, there has been a renewed interest in cinema movies by Nigerians a trend which has since become a lifestyle among the rising urban population in major cities across the country.
Figures from the Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN), an association of cinema owners, operators and managers, show that Nigerian moviegoers spent a total of N3.12bn to watch box office movies at Nigerian cinemas between January and June this year.
Interestingly, the figures have increased to N636m in July making it the highest monthly gross this year. Following the release of Disney’s The Lion King in July,M580,978 people went to watch movies across the 46 movie theatre locations in the country. Released July 19, the movie, The Lion King, was a major hit in attracting 157,437 moviegoers to theatres to watch. And this saw the movie gross over N232m from Nigerian moviegoers.
According to CEAN, the year opened with ‘Aquaman’, ‘Chief Daddy’ and ‘Up North’ sitting on the top three of the chart, with estimated combined earnings of N168m. The movies maintained their positions until the fourth week when ‘Glass’ an American psychological superhero thriller film debuted at top of the chart forcing Aquaman to the second position while ‘Chief Daddy’, and ‘Up North’ took a comfortable third and fourth places respectively.
This led to combined earnings of N91.41m which fell to N77.2m as January closed with Kevin Hart’s ‘The Upside’ kicking ‘Chief Daddy’ to fourth place. A further dive into the figures showed February earnings remained low at N291.8m, making it the lowest, with top spots alternated between ‘Alita’, ‘Cold Pursuit’, ‘What Men Want’, ‘Escape Room’ and ‘The UpSide’.
However, there was an uptick in March as viewership increased and the earnings were almost doubled from that of February leading to a total of N434.4m, with a large chunk of the earnings coming from an American superhero movie, Captain Marvel.
In the early weeks of April, ‘HellBoy’, ‘Shazam’, ‘Little’ and ‘Us’ enjoyed a top spot with ‘Captain Marvel’ until the release of ‘Avengers: Endgame’.
The release of ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ensured that earnings from April surged from N186m in its third week to N342m in its final week. The month closed with total earnings of N734m, the highest in the first half of the year.
The fifth month, saw a massive decline in earnings similar to February earnings, with ‘Endgame’, ‘The Intruder’ and ‘Longshot’, it earned a total of N367.49m.
Viewership, however, picked up in June with ‘John Wick’, ‘Godzilla’ and ‘Aladdin’ leading the numbers. They were supported by ‘Anna’, ‘Men In Black’, ‘Dark Phoenix’ and ‘Bling Lagosians’. June opened with N161m but closed with N100m leading to a total earning of N576m.
The patronage is buoyed by an increase in the number of Nollywood movies at cinemas also the Nigerian movie industry has been churning out quality movies worthy of people’s time and money which makes them cinema-worthy.
Specifically, Mo Abudu’s ‘Chief Daddy’, Kemi Adetiba’s ‘King of Boys’ and Genevieve Nnaji’s ‘Lion Heart’ are some of the top chart Nollywood movies that have made prominence at cinemas in recent times. Also, Nigerian movie producers have found movie premiering as a means of escaping the snares of movie pirates.
