The hitherto lucrative business that was thriving for Nollywood stars in Nigeria is now being threatened by some upcoming actors and actresses, that are desirous to have roles assigned to them and willing to even pay producers and marketers in the industry.
Accordingly, the quality of films in the market have dropped drastically as producers and marketers are now more interested in enlisting and engaging the new actors and actresses that are believed to be quacks, who are too willing to pay producers for staring in films and video.
Per Second News gathered that mostly affected are female actress that are now being under-priced by producers and marketers who are now of the view that they can make more money from the new Nollywood crop of actresses that are ever willing to pay to appear in videos and films.
One of the ‘A’ list actresses from the South West told our correspondent that; “It is a serious and dangerous dimension in the movie industry. The experienced professionals are being ‘chased’ away by upcoming actresses as marketers and producers in the industry have resorted to giving lead roles meant for us to the upcoming actresses.”
The star actress, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, told our correspondent that most of the upcoming actresses bribe marketers and producers to get lead roles in movies, adding that “this accounts for the abundance of low quality movies being produced in Nollywood in recent times.”
The actress further said that most of the upcoming actresses bribe marketers and producers with as high as N500,000, adding that those who do not have such amount of money to pay the marketers have to pay in ‘kind’ to get lead roles.
She also said; “Some of these ladies are prostitutes from brothels who want to become high-end prostitutes, by making themselves popular for very rich men to see.
“Marketers now offer us peanuts for lead roles and once you decline their offer they give the role to the next available upcoming actress who pays them either in cash, kind or even both.
“They don’t care to know whether she is good or not. Imagine offering to pay an ‘A’ list actor N150,000 for a lead role in a movie. The actress is expected to stay at location for more than a week or two and most times at the expence of the actress as some of the accommodation provided are far below standard.”
An A list actor from the South East confirmed the new trend, ” I came across an upcoming actress who told me in confidence that she paid the sum of N650,000 to get a lead role in a movie produced early this year in Awka”.
” She saw nothing wrong in paying the marketers, according to her she feels she will recoup the funds in a very short time”.
Last year, star actress Genevieve Nnaji, said that she is not ready anymore to come back to an industry that is characterized by blandness and mediocrity. Genny as she is fondly called said that the Nollywood industry now churn out bland, dull, uninteresting, predictable and unexciting movies by producers, marketers and ill-trained actors and actresses.
The implication of this development is that very soon, the movie industry will soon fall completely into the hands of quacks whose sole objective is having a platform to show off with a view to launching themselves to other areas of life without consideration for the growth and development of the industry. This could spell doom for the future of the industry in Nigeria.
