Veteran Nollywood actor and filmmaker Jide Kosoko has revealed that he is in debt after his historical film, “Eleko: Oba Esugbayi,” failed to generate enough revenue in cinemas to recover its production cost of more than ₦300m.
Kosoko disclosed this in an interview on African A-List, published on YouTube on October 17, where he explained that the film was financed by investors who expected returns on their investments.
According to the actor, the film, which premiered in cinemas in March, failed to generate sufficient revenue to cover its production expenses, leaving him with outstanding financial obligations to those who funded the project.
He said that the money was not a personal gift from the investors but capital committed to the production with the expectation of making a profit.
“My film Eleko: Oba Esugbayi, that recently came out and we took to the cinemas, cost us over ₦300 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 veteran actor explained that the limited revenue generated by the film was shared among those involved in the project, leaving insufficient proceeds to recover the production cost.
The revelation shows the financial risks associated with producing big-budget films for theatrical release in Nigeria, where box-office earnings do not always guarantee the recovery of production expenses.
Despite the scale of the investment in Eleko: Oba Esugbayi, the film’s reported commercial performance has left Kosoko grappling with the financial consequences of a project that failed to meet its revenue expectations.
