This Week in(side) Nollywood — No. 1
It has been a week of big news and shocking career detours in Nollywood. Things happened and you should know about them.
This Week in(side) Nollywood is a witty recapitulation of the significant events in the industry this week. While you were busy chasing the bag during the week, Nollywood was cooking! Here are the things you missed.
Mo Abudu is now a director: Our Nollywood big mummy has grabbed the heavyweight title in the land. This should not surprise many as she has been hinting at it from her first movie. Abudu is something of an auteur, a producer whose vision and style are more visible in her films than that of directors she hires.
The question is, who lied to Nollywood producers that they wouldn’t be taken seriously if they didn’t direct films? Our hopes are high, anyway, as we await her masterpieces.
Charles Okpaleke is teaching history with film: If you can look beyond his bromance with Iroko Critic, Charles is somewhat of a history teacher, a culture connoisseur and a cameo king.
After making and dismantling your favourite classics, he is now set his mind on your history. He will produce Hijack ‘93, a story about a group of Nigerians who hijacked a plane post-June 12, 1993.
We are sha looking forward to his directorial debut, although he told his boo, Iroko Critic, that it wouldn’t be happening anytime soon.
Obara’m premiered: Kayode Kasum has finally made his masterpiece! After working with all of Nollywood, he’s finally done it! Praise the Lord!
It is another collaboration with his best guy, Dare Olaitan.
Please go and see it — support Nollywood! He says it is his best work yet, so fingers crossed.
Jim Iyke and Mercy Johnson are back: The last time we saw Jim Iyke, he was making a skit with Uche Maduagwu to promote Bad Comments.
Well, now, he is fully into skit-making (sorry, filmmaking) and has teamed up with Instagram comedy goddess Mercy Johnson for The Passport.
Editor’s Note: MJ is actually a Nollywood legend please!
It has quite the lineup; seriously, we can’t wait to see it.
Nope? Nigerians said “back to sender”: The one thing we agree with Nollywood filmmakers on is that the Nigerian audience don’t like good things.
Come on, how can a masterpiece like Nope be making 4M in cinemas?
E: Are you serious? You are blaming Nigerians for this?
W: No vex, Nigerians only watch comedy.
E: Well, even Americans wey na their brother do am, say them no want.
W: It is Marvel! They have ruined Cinema! Na comedy and Marvel dey reign now.
If you are into slow burn, you can check it out.
The tea on Breath of Life’s perfect cast: Amazon Prime has heard all your complaints about the quality of Nollywood films on their platform; hence, Breath of Life, led by B.B. Sasore (God Calling). You all were nagging too much and now, they have packed all the good actors inside one film.
Who will the other people cast now? Our only fear is that something does not spoil along the way but the Word of God says the expectations of the righteous shall not be cut short.
Yes, we said it. Nigerians are righteous.
Netflix in bed with Kenya: We are bringing this up because we want to ask the Nigerian government if Kenya has two heads and ask Netflix what Nigeria ever did to them.
They signed a content globalization and scaling MOU with Kenya but all they do for us is follow shine shine.
There are creators we want you to consider. Please help us to improve your content. Nigeria is too hard to subscribe to what you’ll not enjoy.
Oyin Clegg is still Finding Hubby: Oyin Clegg found out her hubby was gay in part 1 so we will witness her finding hubby again.
Showmax is squaring shoulders with Blood Psalms: It is fantasy season! Showmax is showing off with HBO’s House of the Dragon but that’s not even the best part.
They have a big deal on the way with Blood Psalms, dubbed the biggest African fantasy series and it is coming this September. We hope it matches the hype.
The Set Up 2 sunk: Adesua Etomi returns as Chike and a host of other people came to do what they came to do.
Did you hear about the film’s performance at the box office? We already said all we wanted to say here.
We are looking forward to coming back with great news next week. Nollywood, please give us something to smile about.