Veteran Nollywood actor/Producer, Kunle Afolayan is currently feeling the bite of recession and pirates are not even helping matters. He produced a high quality movie which was premiered in Nigeria some week ago, it’s titled ‘The CEO’. It’s one movie that a lot of people really commended, he featured legend actors, including Nigerians, Foreigners, within Africa and Outside Africa and before that movie could be put together, a lot of millions must have been spent, which is true but it’s so unfortunate that the Legend Producer has managed to get little of what he invested. In an interview, He disclosed some things that are really painful to the heart.
In his words:
“It costs a fortune; we are talking hundreds of millions of naira. We haven’t recouped the money and am not sure I will recoup that money ‘cos now the economy is bad and I have said this several times and there is really no point saying it again; but part of the funding for CEO, we got from Bank OF Industry (BOI) and that money needs to be paid back, I think I even have about maybe eight months left to pay back and it’s a bit scary, because I don’t know how I am going to pay it. But I want to believe that somehow, it will get paid. A lot of Nigerians complain about good quality. For you to have good quality it comes with a price and the price is money.
Some days ago, Desmond and I were joking and I said to him that I paid the director of my photograph for CEO this amount, and he said to me, Kunle; you paid that amount? That is the budget for a whole film now. So you see, really, sometimes; I think it’s better to play small. But for some of us, who have already made name, you can’t come down and play lower. If you are going to come down on your budget or that, you have to make sure the production value is not compromised or that that thing you are known for is not compromised. But CEO is still doing very well, we are doing the London premiere in October, and it’s going to be in London’’
