December 9, 2024
By Idris Buba
Mismanaging funds allocated by global streaming platforms, have negatively impacted the quality of Nigerian films, Nigerian ace comedian and filmrmaker Bright Okpocha popularly known as Basketmouth who disclosed this accused Nollywood producers of diverting funds for other purposes.
Answering questions during an interview on Arise TV, Basketmouth, alleged that many producers misuse substantial portions of the budgets provided for movie production for personal gains.
According to Basketmouth, When the streaming platforms came in, they gave money to these producers, but these producers would take the money maybe about $1.5 million or whatever they give them, use about 10% of that money to make the movie,” he alleged.
He claimed that the streaming platforms, upon discovering these alleged malpractices, decided to pay actors directly to ensure transparency.
However, producers reportedly devised a way to continue the fraudulent activity by coercing actors into paying kickbacks.
READ MORE; US To Give Over $1bn Interventions In Food Insecurity, Other Needs In Africa
“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 emphasized.
The filmmaker argued that the mismanagement of funds has negatively affected the quality of Nollywood films, resulting to substandard epic productions .
“So, when you do that and expect your movie to be 100%, it can’t. It’s impossible. But these guys? The producers, would rather buy houses, buy cars instead of putting the funds into the film production and that is why when you see our movies, some of our epic movies look like stage plays.”
