Cinema Slots Are Not Sentimental In Nigeria – Mo Abudu

Popular Nollywood producer Mo Abudu has dismissed claims that a cabal exists in Nigerian cinemas. She recently revealed that no cabal is working with cinema owners to deny competing films access to cinema slots, and fans have been reacting.

According to her, she genuinely believes that cinema operations are driven by business considerations in Nigeria rather than personal relationships or sentiment.

Mo Abudu added that cinema houses are mainly focused on the return on investment, not favouritism.

Her words, “There is no cabal. This is not about sentiment or favouritism; it is about return on investment. If a film cannot fill seats, it will be replaced no matter who owns it. If I am running air-conditioning, paying staff, and only two or three people are sitting in a 100-seat cinema, that film will lose its slot. It is purely business.”

WOW.

Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.

The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.

Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.

Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.