On January 30, 2026, at the premiere of Anikulapo: Rise of the Spectre, Kunle Afolayan said something that sounded like a sulk and was actually a balance sheet. His remarks raised a practical question about the Nollywood box office split: how much of a film’s ticket revenue reaches its producer?
“There’s no competition. I don’t want two billion naira in cinema, or even one billion naira, if I won’t make ten million naira from it.”
The internet heard a jab. The timing made that easy. Funke Akindele‘s film had just crossed ₦2.4 billion, while Toyin Abraham‘s Oversabi Aunty had passed ₦1 billion. Those figures added to a growing run of billion-naira Nigerian releases. Against that backdrop, Afolayan’s remarks at his own premiere were read by some as dismissing the achievement, though his stated point was about how much a producer actually receives from a headline gross. The figures and the argument about producer returns are separate questions.
What followed was a fortnight of public Nollywood theatre. But strip out the dance videos and the subtweets and one number is left standing, and it is the only part of this story that matters.
The Number Everyone Argued Around Instead of About Cinema Revenue Sharing
Afolayan’s ₦10 million figure was sarcastic. His colleagues said so, and they would know. Toyin Abraham’s manager, Samuel Olatunji, put it plainly in a statement: “No producer earns ten million naira from a one billion naira or two billion naira box office performance.”
Abraham’s camp was making a narrower point: a producer does not take home the headline gross. That does not establish a universal split for every Nollywood film, because the actual result depends on the contracts, distributor, exhibitor and deductions attached to each release.
The producer does not take home the headline gross. The amount that reaches a production company depends on its agreements with exhibitors and distributors, as well as taxes, agreed fees and campaign costs. Without the terms of a particular film’s deal, it is not possible to give one percentage that applies across Nollywood. A ₦1 billion gross is therefore not the same as ₦1 billion in producer revenue—and it says even less about profit after production and marketing costs.
The celebrity feud was the doorway. This is the room.
How a Naira Splits at the Nigerian Box Office
The exhibitor is one part of the chain, alongside the distributor and the producer. Revenue-sharing terms can change by film, contract and week of release, so a single 50/50 formula should not be treated as a universal rule for Nigerian cinemas. The broader point remains: the producer does not receive the full box-office gross. Exhibitor and distribution arrangements, taxes and agreed campaign costs can all affect what reaches the production company.
After the exhibitor’s agreed share is accounted for, the distributor may take its contracted fee for securing and servicing the release. Other deductions can include taxes and publicity costs, depending on the deal. The producer’s return is whatever the applicable agreements and deductions leave for the production company or rights holder. Only then can profit be assessed against production and marketing costs.
The distributor’s role is not a villain’s role. One distributor described the job as straightforward monetisation: producers lack the network of exhibitor relationships, and a distributor already holds those relationships and can confirm screenings. There is real work and real value in it. But value and leverage are different things, and the leverage is where this story turns.
Distribution Leverage in a Concentrated Market
For a producer, the practical issue is how many distributors can offer meaningful theatrical reach. If only a small number can secure a wide release, those companies may have stronger negotiating positions. Exact market-share estimates should be treated cautiously unless the source and period are clear.
When a small number of distributors control a large share of the route between a film and an audience, producers have fewer practical alternatives for theatrical reach. That can strengthen distributor leverage over release terms, even where the exact commercial split varies by film and contract.
There are parallels with disputes in music, although the contracts and legal questions differ. The dispute over Burna Boy’s early catalogue concerns a contested transfer of master recordings. The civil case is before the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, while a separate criminal case in Lagos was dismissed in June 2026 for lack of diligent prosecution. Neither proceeding should be described as a final ruling on ownership unless the court record establishes that outcome.
The Joeboy and Bad Bunny copyright case raises a related question about sample permissions and rights documentation. The US lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice for lack of prosecution; the court’s later refusal to award the defendants’ requested legal fees was not a finding that infringement had occurred. It is a useful comparison about documentation and control, but it does not establish that credit or money was improperly withheld in that case.
Niyi Akinmolayan Raised the Issue Years Before the Feud
None of this is new to people inside the industry. In a June 2022 report by Punch, Niyi Akinmolayan, director of The Wedding Party 2 and CEO of Anthill Studios, said Nollywood represented 40 per cent of the Nigerian box office but lacked marketing firms dedicated to films. He said most cinema releases had marketing spends of at least ₦15 million, with some reaching ₦30 million to ₦40 million. Those were his estimates in 2022, not a verified current industry-wide average.
That figure is the squeeze made concrete. Marketing is not a luxury a producer can skip, because the exhibitor chain favours films that already look financially safe, which means films that arrive with visible promotion.
Akinmolayan’s reported ₦15 million to ₦40 million marketing range illustrates the scale of costs some producers have described, but it should not be treated as a current industry-wide rate or a universal requirement for securing screens. Nor is there one fixed share that every cinema takes in the first week. The producer’s return depends on the release’s actual exhibitor and distribution agreements, applicable deductions and campaign costs. Those terms are needed before the economics of a specific film can be calculated.
Jade Osiberu and the Exit Nobody Else Could Take
If the cinema split is a trap, the most instructive Nollywood career of the past five years belongs to the producer who walked around it. Jade Osiberu’s Gangs of Lagos was the first Nigerian original film to stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. It did not fight for screens against 369 of them across the whole of Anglophone West Africa. It skipped the exhibitor chain entirely and sold direct to a platform.
That single move opened a historic three-year overall deal with Amazon to develop original films and series, a first for an African filmmaker. Osiberu found the exit from the box-office split, and the exit was a streamer willing to pay for the work up front rather than meter it out through a chain of intermediaries.
But the exit has its own trade-off. With streaming platforms, the producer may avoid the exhibitor chain while accepting a deal in which the platform controls the audience relationship and much of the viewing data. A producer who sells to a streamer can reduce theatrical friction, but may also give up some of the upside and information that comes from owning a direct route to the audience.
The streamer pays for a window and keeps the audience numbers to itself. Osiberu escaped the cinema squeeze. Whether she escaped the larger pattern, in which the maker does not control distribution and therefore does not control the value, is a harder question. It is the same question this site keeps arriving at, whether the subject is a master recording or a film print.
Why the Feud Was the Real Press Release
Here is the uncomfortable thing about the Afolayan–Akindele saga. Both sides were right about the other and wrong about themselves.
Akindele’s films genuinely earn their billions; her promotional machine is a real skill that real audiences respond to, and the implication that her box office is somehow less hard-won is wrong. Afolayan’s point that headline figures hide poor returns is also correct, confirmed even by his critics. They spent two weeks talking past each other because the celebrity frame demanded a winner, when the structure they both operate inside is the only thing that actually wins.
The most valuable sentence of the whole affair came from a manager doing damage control. “No producer earns ten million naira from a one billion naira box office performance” was meant to defend a colleague’s feelings. It is, instead, the clearest public statement yet that two of the most successful filmmakers in the country’s history are working inside a split they cannot change. They can cross a billion naira. They cannot decide what a billion naira is worth to them. That decision sits with about three companies and 369 screens.
Afolayan said he did not want a billion naira if he could not keep ten million of it. The real figure is larger than ten million and far smaller than a billion, and the gap between those two numbers is not an accident or a complaint. It is the business model.
How to Read a Nollywood Box Office Gross
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Box-office gross | Total ticket revenue recorded at the box office. |
| Producer earnings | The amount remaining for the producer or rights holder after the applicable splits, fees, taxes and other deductions. |
| Distribution | The commercial function that connects a film to exhibitors and helps secure theatrical access and release. |
For the underlying market series on revenue, admissions and average ticket prices, see GYOnlineNG’s Nigeria cinema data reference. Explore more of our Nollywood business analysis for coverage of film financing, distribution and producer earnings.
For a practical view of the underlying cinema numbers, see our Nigeria cinema data reference.