ELFIKE Film Collective production, The Wedding Party 2 – Destination Dubai (WP2), cost N300 million, excluding publicity, one of its producers has said.
The movie released on December 15, 2017 has raked in over N500 million within the six weeks of its release in cinemas, making it the highest-grossing Nollywood film ever in such a short time of release.
Managing Director of FilmOne Distribution Company, Kene Mkparu, one of the executive producers of the movie, disclosed this on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The filmmaker is one of the resource persons at the ongoing consumer forum of the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) at the Yankari Game Reserve in Bauchi State.
“The Wedding Party part 1 cost us over N150 million to make, plus publicity and the part 2 cost us N300 million.
We believe you have to spend money to make money, and if you can show from your business plan how you would recoup this money, the banks are willing to give you,” he said.
Mkparu further explained that that partnership with relevant stakeholders, especially in tourism, in Dubai added colour to the glitz and glamour of the second instalment of the movie.
He, therefore, urged relevant stakeholders in the Nigerian tourism and the filmmaking sector to initiate such partnership for the growth of the industries.
“We pay for some few locations and then entered into partnership with Dubai Tourism, which made available a lot of tourism facilities and hotels in Dubai for us.
“We could shut anywhere we wanted, as long as the script said so, and we lived in top hotels in Dubai.
“Filmmaking is not just for entertainment but to promote and develop tourism as well,” he noted.
Mkparu explained that although the movie was raking in huge returns for its investors, it was highly capital intensive.
He, therefore, urged filmmakers to develop good scripts as business plans to attract financiers, as adequate funding was critical to making sellable movies.
ELFIKE Film Collective is a partnership between EbonyLife Films, FilmOne Distribution, Inkblot Productions and Koga Studios.
