CEAN’s mission is to promote and protect the value of cinema exhibitions in Nigeria.

Mr. Opeyemi Ajayi, national chairman of CEAN, disclosed this while speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

According to Ajayi, the total number of people admitted to cinemas across the federation during the review period was 174,071.

”For March, we had total sales of N441,752,914 across all cinemas with 174,071 viewers admitted into cinemas.

”Sales in March were encouraging compared with February when we recorded total sales of N278 million due to activities of the Presidential and National Assembly elections, as well as the national problem of cash crunch.

” For April, we will be showing: Super Mario Bros, Domitila, Bloomboys, Honey Money, Renfield, and The Pope’s exorcist,” he said.

Recall that the association said it generated N6.94 billion as revenue in 2022.

Ajayi had earlier this year, said there had been an appreciable increase in revenue generation in 2022, compared with the previous years.

“The box office raked in N4.74 billion in 2021, N2.1 billion in 2020, N6.4 billion in 2019, and N5.98 billion in 2018.

“For 2022, the increase in average ticket price led to revenue growth and admissions remained flat in the previous year.

Ope Ajayi, National President of CEAN, said the amount marked a 28 percent increase over the N294 million realized in August 2021, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

He, however, said that there was a 19 percent decline in tickets sold in August, as N471 million was generated in July.

“The 37 films shown in August realized over NGN378 million at the box office.

“13 Hollywood films accounted for 72.4 percent while 16 Nollywood films made a little over 22 percent.

He said the top five highest-grossing films in August were: Thur: Love and Thunder, Bullet Train, Beast, Hey you! and League of Surpets.

“Thor: Love and Thunder remained the highest-grossing, with N80 million in the month, which brings its lifetime revenue at Nigeria’s box office to over N350 million, as of 31st August,” he said.

Ajayi said the films to be out in September were: Where the Crawdads Sing, Passport, Symphony, Inside Life, Finding Ireti, The Woman King, Ticket of Life, Ticket of Paradise, and Don’t Worry Darling.