The Set Up Sequel Failed But Were The Expectations Ever High?

Naz Onuzo as director, writer and producer in a sole production is a formula yet to prove artistic or commercial viability.

Inkblot Production’s latest cinema outing, The Set Up 2, grossed about 10.5 million naira in its opening week, about 60 percent below market projections which considered the cast members and the present box office dynamics. 

The film is currently one of only two top Nigerian productions in the cinemas and still failed to take advantage of the space and season. While this outing is below average, it was not unexpected as factors that hampered the film’s success were glaring and very avoidable. 

The most obvious reason is that Inkblot, founded in 2010, has not been able to live up to the hype it built around itself in 2016 for working on The Wedding Party as part of the ELFIKE collective. The ELFIKE Film Collective was a partnership of four major production houses in Nigeria: EbonyLife Films, FilmOne Distribution, Inkblot Productions and Koga Studios. Together, they made a N453 million film directed by Kemi Adetiba (King of Boys). 

Inkblot hasn’t been able to  properly extract the ingredients that actually made that magic and has tried in the years following to hit the ballpoint while using the achievements of The Wedding Party as a banner. It is almost a blindfold at this point.  

Others in the collective have run with key lessons from that production and have found interesting concoctions they have employed to recreate similar levels of success in other productions. But not Inkblot. 

The production company has produced a slate of pseudo-comedies mostly written by one of its co-founders, Naz Onuzo. Out of the twelve films it has produced since 2018, only four have surpassed N60 million Naira cumulative gross. The highest grossing films in its slate are those with strong collaborators whose creative inputs are extremely visible. 

The films are Up North (2018) with the detailed involvement of Editi Effiong (Anakle) and artistic contributions of Director Tope Oshin and screenwriter, Bunmi Ajekaiye; New Money (2018), also directed by Oshin with production inputs from Kene Okwuosa, and Isioma Osaje. Its sequel, Quam’s Money (2020), was directed by Kayode Kasum whose vision was evident in the picture amidst clashes with the stressful screenplay.  

The last Inkblot film to cross N60 million was Superstar (2021). This was  directed by Akhigbe Ilozobhie and written by Onuzo and Uyoyou Adia. 

The running theme in the aforementioned movies, apart from Up North, is that despite their success, there were blatant struggles with the story cohesion which direction and other production values worked to salvage.  

The screenplays, except Superstar, were solely written by Onuzo, who also penned The Set Up 2’s prequel. 

No one asked for The Set Up 2

The Set Up (2019) barely passed the 50 million naira mark with audiences running with it for the first couple of weeks, hoping to see the interesting combination of cast members deliver on their roles. The cast included Adesua Etomi, Dakore Egbuson-Akande, Jim Iyke, Tina Mba, Kehinde Bankole and Joke Silva. 

While parts of the casting worked, there was an uproar about the story structure and its inability to sustain the audience’s excitement. In true Onuzo fashion, the story was disjointed and introduced twists and turns that did nothing to move the plot forward, but left the audience asking many questions but not seeking answers. 

In simple terms — no one asked for a sequel. 

Yet, Inkblot thought to make one that is more than just rough around the edges. Only this time, Onuzo wrote and directed, losing the touch and winning strategy that involves having multiple strong perspectives in creative direction capacity. This showed from the initial film announcement to the poorly cut trailer, the haphazard writing and problematic directing. 

Onuzo as director, writer and producer in a sole production is a formula yet to prove artistic or commercial viability. It is time for a reevaluation, but that is unlikely as the company is one of the few that have signed some of the best deals in the industry, albeit prematurely. 

All deals, no strategy? 

This is a case of “all that glitters isn’t gold” with foreign players like Netflix and Amazon patronising the most visible  Nollywood stakeholders and overlooking the most efficient or creative. 

The business strategy of some of these stakeholders involves foreign media posturing and glossy presentations of mediocre titles and they have proven to be the Achilles heel of the foreign players. It is a clear poor work, high reward strategy that shows no chance of wearing off soon. 

Past patterns have shown that production companies and individuals in this category ride on this strategy for as long as possible, until a public outcry happens which embarrasses the streamer and forces them to put a little more effort into forthcoming titles. They do this to salvage their brand integrity, not necessarily out of respect for the audience but because of the risk of losing the streamer’s business. Then they revert to their old low-effort strategy. Rinse and repeat. 

On a closer look, it is as though The Set Up 2 wasn’t a priority at the box office. The entire handling indicates that the production company might have created it as a content filler to fulfil the obligations for its multi-slate deal with a streamer and the cinema debut was simply a marketing tool. 

It is noteworthy that Amazon Prime Video recently closed a multi-year licensing agreement with Inkblot Productions. Under the agreement, Prime Video now has exclusive worldwide distribution rights for Inkblot’s slate of theatrical releases, starting in 2022, which marks Amazon Prime Video’s first exclusive theatrical output agreement with a leading African film studio.

The deal made Inkblot the first Nigerian studio to secure a major movie output agreement with the global streamer and highlights streamer’s commitment to delivering Nigerian and African films to a global audience of more than 200 million Prime members.

There is one more Inkblot film on the way for 2022 and fingers remain crossed for its overall value and eventual performance. This is a chance for Inkblot Productions to go back to the drawing board.