Nigerians spend N278m watching movies in February

The Cinema Exhibitors Association of Nigeria (CEAN) says it generated N278 million from tickets sold across cinemas in the country in February 2023.

The CEAN National Chairman, Ope Ajayi, made the disclosure in Lagos on Tuesday.

Ajayi stated that the cinemas also had 122,295 gross admissions in February.

Cinemas, however, experienced a drastic decline in sales in February when compared with N819 million sales made in January.

Ajayi blamed the cash crunch and poor network service delivery being experienced by Point of Sale (PoS) operators nationwide for the decline in sales.

He noted that cinemas experienced an all-time lull in the week of the presidential and National Assembly elections.

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The CEAN chairman explained that cinemas had limited content to exhibit in February, saying movie producers avoided releasing movies during the election period.

“A couple of reasons are responsible for the drop in sales. We lost a weekend of sales during the presidential and National Assembly elections as Nigerians’ attention was focused on voting across the country.

“Cash crunch and PoS failure, affecting trading generally, is also affecting the cinemas.

“Many movie producers and distributors avoided releasing movies during the election period. So, content was also somewhat limited,” Ajayi said.

Ajayi said the top films exhibited in cinemas across the country in February were ‘Antman’ and ‘Love in a pandemic’.

He listed films to watch out for in March as ‘Creed III’, ‘What love got to do with it’, ‘Shazam fury of the gods’, ‘John Wick iv’, ‘Different strokes’, and ‘Dungeons and Dragons83’.

The Star