General News | 18 January 2006 00:54 CET

Movie marketers fight over Emeka Ike, Tchidi Chikere, others

When marketers suspended nollywood artistes last year, they had the intention of packaging new faces that would be gracing the movie posters and jackets, but things took a strange turn as most consumers were interested in seeing only the movies that starred their known screen idols. The sudden disappearance of some key actors is one of the major reasons why the movie market was very slow and some marketers were afraid of releasing their movies into the market because they are not sure of recovering their capital.This lingered for months and nobody told the marketers to produce less movies and engage in some other businesses.

Notable marketers like OJ Productions erected a five star Hotel in Enugu, Great Movie Industries established a VCD packet producing company, Ossy Affason Industries, Kas-Vid International, Outstrip Movies,O'King Productions and a few others went into producing and marketing of music. Gabriel and Damian Moses of Amaco Investments did not only erect some buildings in Onitsha and Awka, they also got into politics as they sponsored their director, Ifeanyi Azodo for the Onitsha South (Anambra State) local government chairman though he failed to win the election. Contech Ventures and his brother Cosnoris International went back to importation of empty VHS tapes and others engaged themselves in other businesses till the expiration of the suspended nollywood players.

When the suspension elapsed, they were called for a meeting with the marketers, but little did the suspended artistes know that the meeting will tear apart some marketers who have a long standing relationship with one another. The fight started after the meeting when some marketers were engaging Emeka Ike, Kenneth Okonkwo, Jim Iyke, Ramsey Nouah and ace movie director, Tchidi Chikere. The struggle for who will be the first to present movie scripts to them saw some friendly marketers insulting and fighting one another. The ugly incident which attracted a large crowd almost made the management of Marble Arch Hotels, Awka , Anambra State to push them out of the Hotel.

In a chat with Ikechukwu and Nonso Obineme on the development, they said ,"we sincerely appreciate the efforts of the marketers for helping in building the Nigerian movie industry but it's ridiculous for them to be fighting to have on set the same artistes they suspended. This singular act will definitely make the screen idols to always disappoint some producers. Again, pegging the highest fee at N400.000 is not the problem, but the fact is that some desperate marketers are ready to put some thousands in the pockets of the artistes just to have them grace their movie posters and jackets and there is no doubt that they will go for the highest bidder and with that rate the marketers efforts to checkmate the high fee paid to the artistes will be futile.

“The marketers made the rule to suit them, but now they are gradually bending it to also suit them. So the question is, are you going to blame the artistes for utilizing such a precious opportunity to make more money or the marketers for fighting to make more money with the already made stars?" the Obineme brothers of the famous Twins Productions concluded.

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