Bolanle Austen-Peters, a Nigerian movie director, producer, and entrepreneur, during a panel session at the 2024 CEO forum organised by BusinessDay emphasised the need for investment in the Nigerian creative industry especially in the film sector to achieve excellence and global recognition.

Nigeria with a population of over 200 million people has a total of 76 movie cinemas as of 2023 with most of them situated in Lagos (28). According to the Nigerian Box Office report compiled by Filmone, Total admission in 2023 was 2.6 million, with 194 movies released, with a total Gross Box Office revenue of N7.35 billion ($4.1 million).

‘Barbie’ which is considered the most successful film of 2023 made over $636.2 million in the US alone from 4,337 cinemas. The movie is just one of 24 movies that grossed over $100 million in the US in 2023. In another example, IMDb box office weekend reports for July 12 – July 14 show the United Kingdom with 1087 cinema locations leading with $11.5 million followed by Japan with $10.3 million while South Africa came in at $125,138. Nigeria’s weekend report for June 26 – June 30 was reported at $4,602.

“There are certain things you cannot do if you’re not funded adequately. So when people want the excellence of Hollywood production in Nigeria and corporate Nigeria and philanthropist and private individuals sit down and do not invest in that space, you cannot get that quality. It will never happen, The challenge is that the support is just not there,” Austine-Peters said.

James Amuta, a Nigerian filmmaker and producer, emphasised the need for investment in infrastructure, particularly in building cinemas. He said, “We need total infrastructural investment, in the next 5 years we need to raise the total number of cinemas to at least 300.”