Nollywood actress-producer Bolaji Ogunmola says she already owns 100 films and wants a catalogue of 1,000 titles as her retirement plan, arguing that a serious buyer would have to pay at least $1 million for the 100 she holds today.
The comments, now circulating in clips from her interview on Built The Hard Way, dropped as she broke down why flashy box-office and YouTube numbers rarely match what a producer actually takes home.
“Do you know what it means to have a 100 films and for someone to buy your catalog? I currently own 100, and if a big company wants to buy those 100 movies, they’d have to pay at least $1 million. I’m building my retirement fund through movies.”
She was just as blunt about YouTube. Nigerian and African views, she said, pay poorly compared with what audiences imagine.
“Nigerian producers don’t make much money from YouTube when most of the audience is from Nigeria or Africa. If you’re a big influencer on Instagram and you go make a YouTube film that racks up views, it doesn’t mean you’ll make much money. You can see 1 dollar, you can see 30 cents.”
Cinema, in her telling, is not a jackpot either. Producers keep about 30 percent of what a film grosses after cinemas, distributors and other costs take their cut, and tax still comes off the producer’s share.
“In cinemas, producers only get 30% of the revenue their movies generate, and the government still takes tax from it. The cinemas take their percentage, the distributors too, and a lot of other costs.”
That 30 percent figure lines up with what other Nigerian filmmakers and trade reports have described for years: exhibitors, VAT, entertainment tax and distribution fees swallow most of the ticket money before a producer sees a kobo. Ogunmola, who is among the producers of the cinema title Ginger, said the insult is being taxed on gross income rather than net profit after she has repaid loans and production costs.
“The funny part is when I get taxed on gross income and not just net profit. How do I pay the people I loaned money from? I laugh whenever I see the tax invoice and demand that they come see my financial records to know what I actually made. They don’t understand how creators earn.”
She contrasted cheap influencer YouTube clips with the heavier spend on a proper YouTube movie, saying the taxman still looks at the headline figure instead of the investment behind it.
Ogunmola has built a dual path as an on-screen face and a YouTube-and-cinema producer. Her bet is volume and ownership: keep making films, keep the rights, and treat the catalogue like an asset that can be sold later.