Nigerian comedian and filmmaker Basketmouth has made shocking allegations against Nollywood producers, accusing them of mismanaging funds provided by global streaming platforms.
In a recent interview on Arise TV, Basketmouth claimed that many producers squander substantial portions of their budgets on personal interests, rather than investing in quality filmmaking.
According to him, “When streaming platforms provide funding, producers take the money – often substantial amounts like $1.5 million – and allocate only about 10% towards actual movie production.”
Basketmouth further alleged that streaming platforms, aware of these malpractices, opted to pay actors directly to ensure transparency. However, producers reportedly found ways to circumvent this by coercing actors into returning a portion of their earnings.
“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.
The filmmaker argued that this mismanagement of funds has severely impacted the quality of Nollywood films, resulting in subpar productions that fail to meet expectations.
“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 lamented.
Source: https://vanguardngr.com
