May

8

Bollywood, the most prolific producer of cinema in the world, may soon be losing that crown to a place that seems to have quietly surpassed every other cinema-producing country and is now closing in on India’s heels. Unesco’s institute for Statistics has just released a global survey on the state of cinema in the world, and places Nigeria’s Nollywood ahead of Hollywood, but just a few steps behind Bollywood.

According to the survey, here are the top movie producing countries for the year 2006

1. India (1091)
2. Nigeria (872)
3. United States (456)
4. Japan (417)
5. China (330)

But the US beats everyone else in terms of the number of cinema houses

1. United States (38,415)
2. China (37,753)
3. India (11,183)
4. France (5,362)
5. Nigeria (4,871)

The statistics on Nigeria seems to be a little skewed however. First of all, most of Nigerian movies are digital format movies, shot in 2 or 3 weeks and then distributed through an informal and a non-institutionalized chain of home theaters and private cinema houses. That is not how Hollywood or Bollywood or the Chinese or the Japanese cinema make most of their movies. By those standards, Youtube might soon become the highest cinema-producing place where hundreds if not thousands of short movies are produced and released every minute of every day.

Plus Bollywood itself is much more than Mumbai’s film production companies. In fact, the number of Telugu and Tamil films produced closely rivals that of the number of Hindi-language films produced in India. That again, is another specialty for India where regional films are just as popular as the national-language ones. But Indian cinema has a solid history of over a hundred years - Cinema was introduced in India in the last years of the 19th century, and the first indigenous movie production occurred back in 1913. In fact, even back in 1930s, India was said to be churning out over 200 movies per year.

Another factor to consider is the popularity and the longevity of the movies produced. Hollywood and Bollywood have repeatedly shown that capability (though Bollywood’s may be based more on the musical numbers). Nigeria has yet to show solid results on that front. So even if the Nigerian cinema is considered as mainstream cinema for the sake of discussion, it is still a bit of a stretch to consider it on par with Hollywood or Bollywood.

Not that I consider Bollywood on par with Hollywood in the first place. Personally, I think Bollywood’s quality has continued to deteriorate and erode over last few decades. In fact, if you look at the list of highest grossing Bollywood movies there isn’t a single movie, not a single one I repeat, that will make it to the all time Bollywood classics on my list. Unless one begins to adjust for inflation and this and that and what not. It’s almost as if Bollywood stopped making classics sometime in the 1970s. I wonder what happened.


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7 Comments so far

  1. challa on May 8, 2009 7:44 pm

    Once again an Indian mistakes quantity for quality.

  2. Light on May 8, 2009 10:39 pm

    I had seen some good films like Ankhio ke zarokho se, Damad,Golmal,Shaukeen,Julie,Des Pardes,Aandhi,Amanush,Khubsoort,Chupke Chupke etc.. All these films were family entertainer with some of the best songs. Gradually our film makers lost their creativity and had started copying Hollywood badly.Rich businessmen who had no idea about films dumped huge money in bollywood.Now modern cinema has lost all its senses,one can’t see a film with family,so much sex and violence. But theres some good films I have seen recently The wednesday,Aamir. Theres no shortage of themes in country like India,but film makers must have a fire inside to do somthing fruitful.

  3. Jithin on May 10, 2009 12:17 am

    First of all Bollywood does not produce 1091 movies. Its the total of all the regional film industries of India. And to tell you the truth Bollywood is a joke.

  4. Ramu on May 16, 2009 8:21 pm

    Indian movies:
    1. The gun always rules except that the hero almost never dies
    2. Male chases female endlessly
    3. Audience expecting when the couple will engage in lips-locking
    4. Cheap Hollywood ripoffs can still attract millions
    5. Actresses are more willing at flaunting their cleavage in almost every movie (Aishwarya, Shreya, the Arora sistas, you name it)
    6. Oh yes. Sex scenes (yes, ones involving nudity) will very shortly make their appearance in the late 2010s.

  5. Francisca on May 27, 2009 4:03 pm

    Namasté

    Mera name Francisca ,and Bollywood is the Number one in Germany …Bollywood iss the best in the cinema :-).

    Bollywood iss the Number one in germany and in the world

  6. niaja on June 26, 2009 10:46 am

    Have u watch Nigeria Hollywood movies? If not try to watch some good once.

    I see that India’s/ bollywood are improving on their firms they make nowadays compare to firm they make 1990s, now with a powerful camera/background on sometime fashion etc, but the story line are all rubbish, one family to other or cultural stuff regarding marriage same thing happens in all firms,

    Same goes to Nigeria Nollywood.

    But to me, Nigerians are far modern than india’s in terms of cloths and characteristics in terms of standard understanding, all in English, the India firm are make only in Hindu.

    And they spend 5-10 mins in one chapter on each firms, At the end of the day you will spend 4-5hours watching one India rubbish firms.

  7. Shalom on February 10, 2010 11:06 pm

    For me Nollywood is way better than Bollywood. The so called bollywood movies are not even in english. I’m so darn tired of reading the freaking subtitles in their movies. I love nollywood. And about hollywood, I wouldn’t say it’s not better than nollywood, it’s just that I don’t like a lot of sex and violence in their movies.

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