Funke Akindele Didn’t Receive Half Of Cinema Earnings – Olaiya Igwe

Nollywood actor Olaiya Igwe has said that Funke Akindele did not receive up to half of the money her films earned at the cinema. He recently had his say while explaining how revenue from cinema ticket sales is shared in the Nigerian film industry.

According to him, despite Funke‘s movies grossing over N1 billion, the money didn’t go directly to her because the cinemas had their cuts as well.

Olaiya added that even Femi Adebayo made no tangible profit from his popular movie “Jagun Jagun.”

His words, “You hear about box office figures but most people don’t know that the money doesn’t go directly to the producer. The cinema will still deduct their percentage.

Funke Akindele grossed over N1 billion at the cinema, yet she didn’t even receive up to 50% of that revenue. Femi Adebayo also made no profit from his film Jagun Jagun in cinemas.”

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.