Impact of Coronavirus on the Nigerian Cinema Culture

When last did you go to the cinemas?

Since the rise of the cinema culture in Nigeria, movies have seen nationwide releases and more profits due to the larger audience their movies are available to.

As much as cinema-owners and partners expected this to continue, the outbreak of the Coronavirus has caused a direct blow to their purses.

All that moo-lah, gone!

Since the Coronavirus outbreak reached Nigeria, the government laid down strict rules, fines, and punishment for congregating in large gatherings. This directly hit the cinemas as a single screening room can contain an audience of 100 and above.

That was not the only part that really affected their activities.

You know how public holidays are celebrated in Nigeria. Workers, families, and friends get together. They go out to spend some money and cinemas get a lot of this cash from them.

Not only during the public holidays do cinemas pull in lots of cash. During new movie releases, we see an alarming increase in price which lasts almost two weeks into the screening. This also gives them a significant bump in profits.

FilmHouse Cinemas Laments

In a chat with Business Daily, Moses Babatope, co-founder and COO of FilmHouse Cinemas is not very happy right now.

FilmHouse Cinemas is one of the most popular screening centers for movies in Nigeria and with 10 locations as at April 2019, they command a large number of the cinemas revenue in the country.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria, he estimates losses of up to five billion (#5,000,000,000). All of these funds are normally gotten from ticket sales, food, advertising, and hall rentals but since the outbreak and the subsequent lockdown, nothing has been coming in. The jobs of 150,000 employees have also been threatened.

Minus this, Nollywood and other film industries have been put on hold which meant no movies were produced. Release dates have also been postponed.

Since the outbreak of the virus, seasonal cash cows like Good Friday, Easter, Children’s day, Democracy day, and the Eid celebrations have not been able to make them any money since people have been mandated to stay at home.

All the money that these celebrations could have made cinemas across the country have stopped and cinema owners have begun to worry.

What will happen when the lockdown has been finally lifted?

We all know that because of the outbreak people have started to depend on social media, Cable Tv, and online streaming services in a bid to alleviate their boredom.

Will people begin to trickle back into the cinemas or will the cinemas have to build their culture once again?

Countries like China and France have started opening their cinemas after shutting down the activities for a long time.

You will agree that cinemas in Nigeria add a very big option for fun-loving movie freaks. The concern with this and the spread of the virus is still holding people at a suspicious distance.

The question, now, is this, will people start to patronize the cinemas once they open or will they be wary?

With the numbers of new Coronavirus cases ever-rising in Nigeria, we still don’t know if cinemas in Nigeria will get as much people as they have always had.

Maybe they will, but it will be a struggle to get their balance once again.