Why Nollywood Must GO BACK to Drawing Board - Segun Arinze

Veteran Nollywood actor Segun Arinze is the star of the latest Prime Video release Katangari Goes to Town which is currently streaming. In promotion of the movie, Segun is doing a promotional run, and on his stop at Arise News, Segun Arinze passionately spoke about why he believes it's time for Nollywood to return to the drawing board, especially since Netflix and Prime Video went back to their own drawing boards in looking at how they want to operate their business in the Nigerian market. Segun had a lot to say, here's what he said.

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Calling for Nollywood to return to the drawing board, Segun Arinze spoke passionately about it saying:

SEGUN ARINZE: I don't think that it's a fact that Amazon Prime and Netflix pulled out of Nigeria. I think one thing people need to understand first and foremost is that it's a business venture and they have the right to resize. And I think that's what has happened.

It's not as if they pulled out of Nigeria, but they stopped what's called original productions where they fund the film, say take this money, go make us a film and it's part of their originals. So what they have now is they're going to be working on acquisition basis: you bring your movie, we like it, we buy; we don't like it, you look for another platform to exhibit your movie.

Everybody has just been talking about Netflix moving out of Nigeria, closing shop because "they gave some producers money and they went haywire and we're spending lavishly" and I don't think that's the true situation.

What I found out from my discussions on various platforms and talking with a lot Nollywood practitioners is that they need to restructure and that's what they're doing; and they have every right to do that.

So I think we should ask this question: what if Netflix and Amazon were not here? What would have happened? The industry would not progress? How were we working before they came? Before the advent of Netflix and Amazon?

There was Rok Studios as well, so how were they thriving? I think we need to look beyond our noses and go back to the drawing board and also research on how we make our own productions and how we do things right.

Now there's an influx on YouTube, everybody's going on YouTube to throw movies left and right. I've started hearing things like "this person is a YouTube actor", I mean, ridiculous things that you just hear. Some say "he's a cinema actor", somebody is a "YouTube actor" somebody's a "Netflix actor", for crying out loud, an actor is an actor. A producer is a producer. A director is a director. Yes, there are different platforms for streaming and for showing and executing your movies but you know we Nigerians, we like doing cliches a lot. We have a lot of cliches and it's so sad.

But I think this should be an eye opener. We should all learn our lessons.

What do you think about what Segun Arinze had to say? Let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment either below or on my Jide Okonjo Facebook post.

That's All.

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