Nigerians spend N6.9bln on cinemas
The Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN) has reported that Nigerians spent more than N6.9 billion to watch films in the cinemas in 2019.
The year opened with ‘Aquaman’, ‘Chief Daddy’ and ‘Up North’ sitting on the top three of the chart, with estimated combined earnings of 168, 263, 512 million Naira.
Earnings remained low for February, making it the lowest grossing month with a total of N291.8 million.
By March, viewership picked up steadily and the earnings were almost doubled from that of February leading to a total of 434, 432, 431 million Naira.
Earnings from April climbed from 186, 929, 188 million Naira in its third week to 342, 382, 389 million Naira in its final week.’
The month closed with estimated total earnings of 734, 151, 060 million Naira due to a major boost from Disney’s ‘Endgame’.
In May, there was a massive dip in earnings similar to that experienced in February. With ‘Endgame’, ‘The Intruder’ and ‘Longshot’, it earned a total of 367, 498, 554 million Naira.
June opened with 161, 132, 714 million Naira but closed with 100, 663, 647 million Naira leading to a total earning of 576, 322, 779 million Naira.
In July, the highest-grossing film for the period was ‘Bling Lagosians’. The film grossed the highest income in cinemas in June. In the first week of July, the movie earned N37.4million.
For the last weekend in August, ‘Bling Lagosians’ settled at number 20 with ‘Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’ struggling at number 19. ‘The Set Up’ had dropped to number five.
Cumulatively, the cinemas earned over three billion naira in the first half of 2019 and over 1.2 billion naira in July and August of the same year.
In September, ‘Angel Has Fallen’ topped the box office with a gross of 40, 434, 564 million naira. It was followed by ‘Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw’ and Nollywood film, ‘The Millions’ which debuted at number three, raking in N10, 046, 476.
‘Angel Has Fallen’ remained on top for the second week with ‘Hustlers debuting at number one at the third week.
By the end of the month, cinema earnings had dropped by 13 per cent with ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ at number one.
In October, ‘Love is War’ started strong with 14, 228, 280 million naira in its first week. ‘Fast and Furious: Hobbs and Shaw’ sank to bottom in its 10th week. The same was the case for ‘The Lion King’ which was in its 12th week.
However, ‘Joker’ snagged the number one spot by the second week of October with the cinema gross totalling to 83, 703, 650 million naira that week.