‘People thought I was crazy when I started’ -Comedian/ Dad, AY Tells His Amazing Success Story As A Filmmaker
Ayo Richard Makun popularly known as AY has nothing to prove to anyone again. After conquering the stage as a stand-up comedian, the dad-of-one took his talent to Nollywood to strengthen the industry.
Today, he has not only raised the bar as far as a film making is concerned in Nigeria, but also, he has written his name in gold as the producer of the highest grossing movie ever in West Africa ,“30 Days in Atlanta,” which he released in 2014.
The multi-talented comedian -turned-actor, who studied Theatre Arts at Delta State University, Abraka, has since produced other groundbreaking movies that are also making waves at the international film market.
Speaking at the Creative Nigeria Summit, held on Monday, in Lagos, the award-winning actor took time to share his success story as a film maker. Sharing his story to a large audience, comprising bank executives, captains of industry, movie practitioners and corporate individuals, the Delta State-born filmmaker relived memories of how he began his journey into movie production.
According to him, it all started from the comedy skits he was uploading to his You-tube channel, which at a time was the highest viewed channel in Nigeria. He began:
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“I want to believe that a few success stories we have recorded in the industry, I am privileged to be one of those people. I must say that I dabbled into film making.
I used the word dabbled because in Nigeria when you are known to be doing a particular craft, when you navigate or tend to do something else, it’s always difficult for people to accept it.
Meanwhile, I studied Theatre Arts, and majored in directing, a lot of people do not know that part of me. So, why am I doing something differently? It started from the comedy skits I used to upload online. I still do the skits.
I was putting the skits on You-tube. At some point my You-tube channel became the most viewed in comedy wise in Nigeria. So, one day, I was having a conversation with my wife and she suggested to me that why don’t I produce a full length movie, instead of the comedy skits.
It brings me to the success story of ’30 Days in Atlanta’. When I wanted to produce ’30 Days in Atlanta, a lot of people thought I was running crazy.”
Speaking further, AY disclosed that it costed him about $150,000,00, which is about N23 million to produce the film. He said:
“Investing N23 million into the movie, it ended up grossing N163 million in the box office which is about $1.1 million. However, about N50 million or should I say about $330 had to go back into production. The film sold to about eight airlines and five online platforms including Netflix in 2017.
We are very excited about Netflix today but I tell you that ’30 Days in Atlanta’ also was among the first set of movies around here that went on that platform in 2017. I also made another $100, 000 plus, and I’m still making more money till date.
Apart from ’30 Days in Atlanta’, I have done a couple of other movies. After the success story of ’30 Days in Atlanta’, we came up with another one, ‘A Trip to Jamaica.’ I invested about N60 million and the film grossed about N188 million at the box office with about N40 million going back into production.
When I did ’10 Days in SunCity’ I was contacted from South Africa. The country Tourism came on board to be a part of ’10 Days in SunCity’ and the film turned out to be a major showcase for one of the products. It was large.
Moving from that level, I was seating at the comfort of my home the other day when I got a call that some people are coming to see me from China. What I am trying to say is that I never run at loss in terms of film production. The brand has become very strong that international partners like Netflix and a Chinese media company, Huawei are looking forward to collaborating with me to do ’30 Days in China.”
It will be a sequel of ’30 Days in Atlanta’, which ended up entering the Guinness Book of world record as highest grossing film from this part of the world at a time. Still in business, we are currently working on the film, ‘Merriment.’ Just last week we put the film on Netflix in America, and it was one of the trending films on that platform.The facts are out there and it’s a plus to us . You know, when the music is good, you play it twice. We are producing ‘Merriment 2’ which I believe by December, it’s going to be one of the biggest films to come out of Nigeria.”