How the Movie Industry Makes Money in Africa See Latest Update

Filed in Articles by on January 14, 2022

– How the Movie Industry Makes Money –

How the Movie Industry Makes Money in Africa: You know years back, I use to be among people that kicked against movie industry, trust me,  it wasn’t my fault really, I mean if you had seen the movie star Eli Wallach in a movie, you will so hate been a movie star. Those days movie stars didn’t have the kind of money have now or the life of luxury they live now.

But now is the opposite, the movie industry is among the most successful company in the world today, making the unimaginable amount of money. added to this is the fact that they are famous, people would go the extra mile just to see or talk to them.

I can guess what is going through your mind now, how do they make their money right? that is exactly what i will be showing you in his article.

Ticket Sales

have you ever been to a Cinema to watch a movie before? am sure you saw the way people where throbbing into the theater to watch, the truth is for every person that pays to watch that movie, the company that shot the movie makes money from it.

So imagine if there like 30 states in a particular country and in each state there is about 6 cinema( sometimes it can be more than that) , imagine the kind of money they will be making.

Although the money doesn’t entirely go to the movie industry, a percent also goes to the theater owners.  and you know another amazing thing about this,

Films don’t just play cinemas on the first run; they can remain for a few weeks or months, and most times come back around again in repertory houses, which means the money in all those times.

Personally, I spent some time booking films for rep and got pretty used to the system.

What happens is that The cinema would pledge a “minimum guarantee,” a base pay that would shield at least the cost of shipping the print to the place, and the distributor’s admin cost.

Then there will also be a percentage price, from time to time as low as 30%, occasionally higher, and dependent on the particular film, how old it was and who was distributing it.

The cinema would then pay any was higher, the assurance or the percentage.

DVD, Blu-ray or Download Sales and Rental

another way the movie industry makes money is through DVD, Blue-ray, or download. this is actually the most common way.

I can still remember vividly how my mom would go to the market and she would buy movies for us to watch on our DVD device, it something everybody has done at a point or another.

This is how they make money from DVD and Blue-ray, they will produce a large volume of a movie into a DVD case or into  Blue-ray. sometimes it can be more than a million-copy, when it is sold, you can guess the amount they will make.

Often times, they give their movies to top online sale platform like Amazon to the sale for them or Amazon can buy a particular copy from them and sale, they make a whole lot of money this way

another major way is through downloads, I spend the whole day downloading a movie, some of this movies have very large space.

Now for every download i make, the movie industries make their money(except perhaps the website u downloaded the movie is illegal) imagine how much they make from about 5 million downloads.

Renting is also part of it. you pay an amount of money then you’ll be given a movie to watch and then return. this process is actually not very common this day, especially in Africa.

TV and streaming services

After a film has had its time on the aisle ends and been shuffled into the back catalog shelves, and after Amazon stop pimping it to you and you’ll have to go searching for it precisely, that movie will soon get on television or, progressively, on an Amazon Prime or Netflix-style subscription streaming service.

The various Sky Movies channels make for an interesting study here. They have their high-profile, premiere splashes, with new and big-name films advertised and given good slots on the schedule.

Then they fill up their schedule with… other films. Of all kinds. When licensing films to screen, they will most likely buy them in packages.

Say, for instance, they are making a contract to screen  THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, say, Disney, we’ll license that to you in a package of 20 films, each of which you can screen X times in the next 12 months.

You’ll get Guardians, you’ll get Iron Man and Iron Man 2, and then you’ll get these other 17 gems, running the gamut from That Darned Cat! to Herbie Fully Loaded.

It’s a way that Disney can continue to generate revenue off of their less attractive library stock.

I cooked those numbers and skewed the titles, but I think you’ll get the idea. Even old films like THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY are pushed on TV stations and charged for.

A related thing will happen with Netflix, who’ll also license many films in blocks.

Box office, Netflix and other Platform

personally, i can do without Box office or Netflix, I mean they save the stress of going to the cinema to watch a movie and also to download.

So how do they make money from this platform? the box office or Netflix would buy the movie from the original company at a reasonable price and would place it on their website for people to come and watch or they will put the movie on their platform, for anybody that pay to watch the movie.

The money will be shared between them and the company that produced the movie and believe me, they make a whole lot of money this way.

Let me give you an example, the movie BLACK PANTHER, made a huge amount of money on a movie and another platform. in African, the most popular platfrom is the iroko.

Iroko TV website gets more than 10 million visits from viewers across the world. At the time of writing this article, his firm has attracted over $12 million in investment funding from two US and Swedish-based venture capital firms

Airplanes

Another small screen outlet will be up in the air. Movies are also licensed for those smudgy little panes on the back of airplane seats. It’s somewhat less clear than television, I guess, and the films tend to be rather newer. I’ve even seen some films on planes that had never played anywhere else, though even Susan Seidelman’s Gaudi Afternoon creeped out on DVD eventually.

Airplane movies will tend to have been altered somewhat, though I’ve seen a lot of bare boobs, bloodshed, and even plane crashes during my more recent long haul pentuple-bills, so perhaps things are changing.

Festivals Screening Fee

It is a normal thing for the producer of a movie to request the organizers of a film festival for a screening payment before his movie is shown. The screening fee varies from the genre and where the film will be premiered.

A filmmaker can make a neat sum from screening charges particularly if it is a low budget. Abba Makama has taken his movie to film festivals around the globe and has been paid screening fees

Foreign Sales

One major way the movie industry makes money is through the foreign sales. Let me show you how;

When a producer cobbles collected the budget for an independent film – modestly budgeted at, say, $25 million – selling the distribution rights in foreign territories is vital to cover the film’s budget and, with a bit of luck, bring in revenue. Independent filmmakers can really make cash if they have a great foreign sales agent who can sell their film in key overseas markets.

Producers will habitually make their “wish list” when casting a film and the list will classically be full of well-known names that “travel” overseas.

If you have Genevive and Rita Dominic, you’re much more likely to sell the rights to China and France. This isn’t a guarantee that your film will make millions (or billions), but it’s about as safe a bet as you can get in this business.

Through Movie Launching 

Do you know how much the producer of the trending movie THE WEDDING PARTY  made? the made a whole lot of money. The major ways producers of a movie make money is through movie launching. according to Genevive, a popular Nigerian actress,  she said you can make recover all the expenses in making a movie through launching and even have some remaining, no wonder they’re always launching one movie. where is what they do…they invite personality who usually donate huge money doing the launching.

Through Novelization 

In the united states(talking about Holly wood), one way they make money is through the writing of book or novel after a particular movie, for example, the movie SPACE ODYSSEY was adapted into a novel, the movie  WONDERFUL LIFE  was also adopted into a novel and the popular book, ACT LIKE A LADY, THINK LIKE A MAN.  the truth is, they make huge money from this book, i don’t think there is anybody who hasn’t read or seen the book, ACT LIKE A LADY AND THINK LIKE  MAN.

Although Novelization is not very common in Africa, some few movie companies have begun bringing out a novel that was initially a movie and they are making good money from it.

Magazines

am very sure you stood and read through a magazine you saw your favorite movie star. maybe you even brought it or you wished you brought it.  that is the same feeling with every other person and that is another way they make money, through the making of magazines featuring famous celebrities.

Industry in African are adapting this way and they are making a whole lot of money from it.  they print millions of copies. the truth is it people buy all of them and even order for more

Advertisement

do you know the movie industry makes money for advertising for a particular brand? sounds unbelievable but that is the truth, as a matter of fact, they make money you can’t imagine in this way.

Here is how they do it, maybe  particular was signed into a movie company and he is been asked to advertise a particular brand, whatever the star make will be shared between him and the company

CSN Team.

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