Veteran Nollywood actor and filmmaker, Jide Kosoko, has disclosed that he is in debt after his film, Eleko: Oba Esugbayi, failed to recoup its production cost of over ₦300 million at the cinemas.
Kosoko made this known in a recent interview on African A-List, where he explained that the funds used to produce the movie came from investors who expected returns on their investments.
According to the veteran actor, the film failed to generate enough revenue to recover the amount spent on its production, leaving him with financial obligations to those who invested in the project.
He explained that the money was not a personal gift but an investment that required returns, adding that the limited revenue generated by the film was shared among those involved.
“My film ‘Eleko: Oba Esugbayi’ that recently came out and we took to the cinemas, cost us over N300 million. Do I have 300 million? You should know that some people gave it to me and it was not that they dashed me, they invested in it and we took the film to the cinemas,” he said.
The disclosure highlights the financial risks associated with cinema releases in Nigeria, where filmmakers invest substantial sums in production, distribution and promotion without any guarantee of recovering their costs.
For Kosoko, the film’s poor financial performance has reportedly left him grappling with debt despite the scale of the investment behind the historical project.
