How Femi Adebayo is Teaching Nollywood a New Lesson - Olumide Lawrence

If you have been paying attention to the Nigerian film industry, you will notice a disruption happening right under our noses. While we are used to the glitz and glamour of movie premieres at the big malls in Lekki and Ikeja, Femi Adebayo has quietly picked up his bag and taken his latest blockbuster, King of Thieves (Agesinkole) 2, to event centres and halls across the Southwest.

To the uninitiated, this looks like a step backward. Why would a big star bypass the "polished" cinema screens for event halls?

But as a marketing strategist, I see this differently. This is not a retreat. It is a textbook execution of a Blue Ocean Strategy. It is a move that exposes the cracks in our current cinema model and points towards a future where distribution is finally democratised.

First, let us tell ourselves the bitter truth: the Nigerian cinema model, as it is currently set up, is a "monkey dey work, baboon dey chop" arrangement for many producers.

We see the headlines: "Movie X grosses 800 million naira!" We clap. But in marketing, we know that revenue is vanity, profit is sanity. By the time the Cinema exhibitors take their 50-55% cut, the distributors take their 15-20% cut, and the tax man takes his own slice, the producer is often left with "change" that cannot even cover the Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) or production budget. We have high revenue figures but shockingly low margins.

Secondly, beyond the money, there is the issue of the "godfatherism" of showtimes. In the cinema business, demand is often manufactured. The cinema operators decide who "blows." If you are one of the big boys or you belong to the right clique, your movie gets the prime time slots on weekends. If you are a regular producer with a great movie but no "long leg," they will give you the 10:30 AM slot on a Tuesday. Who is watching a movie at 10:30 AM on a Tuesday? Is it the unemployed? Then, when nobody shows up, they pull your movie claiming, "The demand was low." No, sir. You strangled the supply.

If you ask me, I think Femi Adebayo took a page from the Bokku strategy. His decision to screen Agesinkole 2 in event centres is the cinematographic equivalent of what Bokku and Jendor are currently doing to Shoprite.

Think about it. For years, the retail model was "Build a big mall, put AC, and wait for the people to come to us." That is the Shoprite and Cinema model. But Bokku and Jendor looked at the market and said, "No, we will go to where the people are." They took the supermarket experience out of the mall and planted it in the neighborhoods, on the street corners, right next to where the customers sleep.

Today, those localised supermarkets are slowly strangling the big malls out of the market because they understood one thing: proximity is power. Femi Adebayo is doing the exact same thing. He is bypassing the "Big Malls" to execute a Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) model in local halls.

Olumide Lawrence Marketing Strategist

I believe this is the future of cinema viewing in Nigeria. Interestingly, it's like a return to how cinema viewing actually started in Nigeria. Here are the reasons I like this strategy:

1. Owning the Pot: When you rent a hall, you pay a fixed cost. Whether 10 people come or 1,000 people come, the rent is the same. If Femi fills up a 2,000-capacity hall in Ilorin at ₦5,000 per ticket, that is ₦10 Million in one show. And guess what? He doesn’t have to split that 50/50 with any cinema chain. He keeps the lion’s share. His Return on Investment (ROI) is instantly healthier.

2. Breaking the Monopoly: This approach proves that the power belongs to the content creator, not the platform. If the cinemas refuse to give fair showtimes, producers can now say, "No wahala, I will rent a hall next door." This threat of competition will eventually force cinema operators to sit up and create a level playing field.

3. Community over Traffic: The big cinemas rely on the foot traffic at the malls. But this model relies on brand loyalty - people who will drive to a specific location just to watch your movie. This is a wake-up call for all producers: Stop building your brand around cinema chains; build your brand around people. If you have a community, you can sell tickets in a stadium, a hall, or an open field.

Femi Adebayo has unleashed a breath of fresh air into the industry. We are moving toward a future where a producer doesn't need to beg for a slot at the mall to be successful. This democratization means that lesser-known producers can start touring with their films, taking the content directly to the consumers in Alimosho, Ikorodu, Epe, and Ogbomoso, places the big cinemas ignore.

The cinema chains will remain relevant for the "experience," but the monopoly on distribution is crumbling. The box office is no longer a building; the box office is wherever the people are gathered.

And that, my friends, is how you turn show business into actual business.

Please share thoughts on this: would you be watching your fave's blockbuster movie if it were showing in a nearby hall in your location?