Ruth

Watched "The Black Book" on Netflix last night. The Nollywood film is called Nigeria's version of "John Wick". It's been viewed >70m times and topping charts eveywhere (peaked at #3 for English globally and top 10 in 69 countries). The best part: it cost only $1m to make. While that budget is significant for Nollywood films — which are typically made for less than $50,000 — it's a drop in the bucket for Hollywood blockbusters. Here is a random ratio list for the "first 28-day watches" vs. budget for major Netflix original films: ◻️ "The Gray Man" (139m watch / $200m budget = 0.7x) ◻️ "Red Notice" (230m / $200m budget = 1.2x) ◻️ "Don't Look Up" (171m / $75m = 2.3x) ◻️ "Glass Onion" (136m / $40m = 3.4x) ◻️ "Bird Box" (156m / $20m = 7.8x) "The Black Book" is huge bang for the buck at 70x watches-to-budget. The film was written and directed by former tech and marketing exec Editi Effiong. To get funding for the film — and make Hollywood-calibre action scenes — Effiong tapped entrepreneurs from Nigeria's tech ecosystem. Legendary Nollywood actor Richard Mofe-Damijo plays the revenge-seeking protagonist. Nollywood is currently the world's second largest film industry by volume, making >2,000 a year (this is ~2x the US market and trails only India's Bollywood). Piracy is rampant in Nollywood, so big budgets for in-country distribution doesn’t make sense (rather, quality over quantity wins the day). But the success of "The Black Book" on streaming can clear the path for more global Nollywood hits My suggestion for another Keanu-themed Nollywood banger: “Speed”.