Popular comedian, Bright Okpocha, better known as Basketmouth has revealed that majority of Nigerian film makers squandered funding from streaming platforms including NETFLIX on houses and cars, rather than making quality movies.
Basketmouth who is currently promoting his first feature film, ‘A Ghetto Love Story’ disclosed this during an appearance on Arise TV.
When asked the percentage of film executives who misappropriated money from the likes of NETFLIX, the comedian insisted that over 70 percent of Nollywood producers funded by such companies were guilty of his accusation.
He said: “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.
“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 added.
Basketmouth added that the misappropriation of funds for film projects resulted in the production of sub-standard movies.
“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,” Basketmouth stressed.
The comedian’s revelation comes days after top Nollywood producer, Kunle Afolayan revealed that NETFLIX has stopped funding Nollywood productions.
Be the first to comment