Nollywood Is Bigger Than Oil & Gas Industry—Tinsel Star, Victor Olaotan

Popular Tinsel actor, Victor Olaotan, has disclosed in an exclusive chat with Nollywoodgists.com that the Federal Government needs to invest more in Nollywood in order to make filmmaking in Nigeria meet the standard of Hollywood.

Victor said the government is yet to start investing in Nollywood despite the $200 million put down by the government for the creative industry. “The government putting N200 million into Nollywood, that is the budget of one film in Hollywood. There is no short cut to success. If we want to be like Hollywood, then we have to do it like Hollywood,” he emphasised.

According to him, his passion has been for filmmaking, but he had to do movies because it has not been entrenched in Nigeria.

“Hollywood has films that are budgeted for $300 million and we have not even started that in Nigeria. So I think 'Half of a Yellow Sun was $100 million so that is the closest that Nigeria has come in terms of big budget films.

“Most of the films you see on TVs these days, most of the producers will tell you it's a low income budget and I am tired of hearing that. We need to do good movies. We need to do movies that we can pay the actor whatever they want and make it great,” he said.

The Tinsel actor, urged Nigerians to invest in Nollywood as there are great returns to derive from the make-believe sector.

“I can tell you that Nollywood has more gross earnings than the oil industry but many people don't know that information, so people need to come and invest in Nollywood,” he noted.