How Dr. Ola Balogun Made Nigeria'First Box Office Blockbuster "Ajani Ogun" for Duro Ladipo

I said; why don’t I make film in the style of the Yoruba theatre which was such a tremendous success in Nigeria. There is a funny story I love to tell people. You know in those days the cinemas were mostly controlled by the Indians and the Lebanese. Only one or two Nigerians had the control of cinema theatres. There was a gentle man called George Nicole. He was a lawyer. He had a cinema theatre and controlled what was then called Glover Cinema. He ran the successful cinema house. So, I traced his house. He lived near St. Gregory’s College in Lagos. In those days in Nigeria, you could go to someone’s house without knowing him and ring the door bell and when he answers, you tell him what you want and he will gladly attend to you.

So I went to George Nicole’s house. After the usual pleasantries, I told him: “I am a Nigerian and I made a film and I would like you to show it in your cinema theatre.” In fact, he laughed so hard that I was forced to join him in the laughter. So together we laughed. He said to me, “First of all, you are a Nigerian, you could not have made a film because Nigerians don’t make films. Secondly, if you have made what you call a film, it cannot be a real film because where they make films, they have studios like in Hollywood or like in Delhi and Bombay. We don’t have such in Nigeria; so where did you make this thing you call a film?” So we laughed together again. And he said, “you are a real joker”. And I said no.

I said to him, “if you want to know the reality of what I have told you, why don’t you allow me when you are having your next film show during the interval for publicity, then you can allow this film of mine for one minute. If the audience is interested, maybe we can talk together to allow me to show it”. So, he agreed and next time he showed excerpts of it during the period of the advertisement. And the audience went wild because they could see their own people on the screen. They could hear their own language Yoruba on the screen. They were shouting. And the man said, “Ok, you have something that can be shown. But let us show it for only one night, only one night, you hear!” And we agreed. That night, I could not get near the theatre myself.

There were thousands of people struggling to get into that cinema theatre. The man himself had his agbada torn, he lost his shoes. But he was happy. You know why? He was inside the box office counting the money. Like a fool, I was outside admiring the crowd.

That’s how Ajani Ogun got made and it was so popular. The young man who was the lead actor Ade Afolayan came from somewhere in Kwara State. He had a friend who was a fairly wealthy businessman. I think he made toothpaste and things like that. I can’t remember his name now……

http://streetsofnaija.net/2013/11/ola-balogun-how-i-created-witches-out-of-hubert-ogundes-ideas-must-read/

Hmmm...wonderful

Intrepid01:
Hmmm...wonderful

Lest we forget.