Reports circulating have it that Toyin Aimakhu‘s response to Funke Akindele’s Jenifa – Alakada Reloaded – made twenty-five million Naira in its first three days at the cinema.
Alakada Reloaded which features Odunlade Adekola, Kehinde Bankole, Woli Arole, Nedu OAP, Helen Paul, Lilian Esoro, Annie Idibia, Bidemi Kosoko, Liz Da Silva and Gabriel Afolayan was released into cinemas on May 26, 2017.
In a statement, FilmHouse director, Moses Babatope said, “From the moment Toyin walked into our office, we could sense her passion, and with the help of our amazing FilmOne team, we’ve been able to help her movie get where it needs to be – the top.”
According to the report, the film’s opening weekend gross puts it in the current top 5 releases of 2017 alongside Okafor’s Law, Omugwo, Hire a Man and American Driver.
Now, here’s how we think it is likely the film made N25m in 3 days.
For Alakada Reloaded to hit that figure, it should make an average of N8.33m per day. There are about 150 screens in Nigeria at the moment. This means that the film should make N55,555 per screen in each of the days. Considering the fact that most cinema outlets allocate between two to four screening times to Alakada Reloaded per day, a daily ticket income of fifty-five thousand per working screen is very possible.
Many cinemas have increased their ticket prices from N1000 to N1500 and while some charge N2000 if the audience demand for the film is high.
Going by all this, the producers of Alakada Reloaded might just, after all, be telling us the truth. However, due to the near impossibility of an independent verification of cinema figures in Nigeria despite the efforts of FilmOne to run an open policy, the best media houses can do is to attempt an off-the-record interrogation of cinema figures released by filmmakers.
