Nollywood Spends N4bn in 8 Months

Nollywood which grew out of frustration, necessity and crisis in the late 1980s, is upbeat and not showing signs of slowing down as producers in the industry spent some N4 billion in eight months to churn out 635 movies, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
The movies were produced between January and August this year, and duly approved by the National Film & Video Censors Board (NFVCB).
44 per cent of the films are in English, 56 per cent in local languages (Yoruba – 31per cent, Hausa – 24per cent and Igbo – one per cent).
An average Nollywood movie costs about N5 million to N10 million to produce – a far cry from the cost of making an average Hollywood movie.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek learnt that an average Nollywood film production employs between 100-500 cast and crew. While the director/producer earns an average of N500,000 or more per production, the makeup artist gets N150,000; cameraman N350,000; video editor N100,000; and actor  N20,000 to N250,000 or more, depending on how he/she is sought after in the industry.
Average Nollywood movies sell about 20,000 – 40,000 copies, while bestsellers such as Osuofia in London sell between 200,000 to 400,000 copies, which is still a far cry from what Hollywood or Bollywood films of that category sell
The over $2.3 billion Nollywood industry in 2008 has grown quickly to become the second largest film industry in the world, in terms of number of films produced per year. This is ahead of the United States and behind India’s Bollywood.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that most of the Nollywood movies have themes that deal with the moral dilemmas facing Nigerians.
They also have characteristic short production time of 4-6 weeks.
Nollywood stars are famous throughout Africa, and Nigeria culturally dominates West Africa just as the US does the world