Why some of our epic films look like stage plays -Basketmouth

By Tosin Brown

Bright Okpocha, aka Basketmouth, has opined that Nollywood producers should be blamed for some of the poor-quality production seen on streaming platforms, especially commissioned projects.

The comedian, actor, and film producer accused Nollywood producers of grossly mismanaging funds provided by global streaming platforms.

In a recent interview on Arise TV, Basketmouth alleged that many producers use as little as 10% of the allocated budgets for the production of films and divert the balance to fund their personal lifestyles.

“When the streaming platforms came in, they gave money to these producers, and I’ll tell you point blank: these producers would take the money $1.5 million or whatever they give them and use about 10% of that money to make the movie,” he said.

Continuing, he claimed that streaming platforms eventually started paying actors directly to bypass dishonest producers. Yet, the producers request for kickbacks from the actors.

“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.”

Continuing, he said “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,” he added.

Basketmouth recently released his first feature film entitled, ‘A ghetto love story’ and it’s currently screening in cinemas.