Why Some Films Never Trend No Matter How Good They Are

There's a peculiar heartbreak in Nollywood that happens quietly, away from red carpets and premiere fanfare. It's the sound of a well-made film falling into silence. 

The kind of film where everything is intentional, every performance nuanced, every story beat earned and yet, somehow, it never catches fire. No viral moments. No trending hashtags. Just a quiet release, a few respectful reviews, and then... nothing.

We’ve watched it happen too many times. Filmmakers pour their souls into projects, only to watch them disappear while films with a fraction of the craft dominate conversations for weeks. And the question that haunts every screening room and production office is always the same: Why?

After countless conversations with filmmakers, distributors, and executives and years of observing audience behaviour both as a film reporter and filmmaker, I've come to a difficult conclusion: quality doesn't guarantee virality.

In fact, sometimes it works against it. Think, A Ghetto Love Story, The Weekend, The Herd, and even the AMVCA-winning Freedom Way, etc. These films are well done, but the numbers don’t match. 

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The Uncomfortable Truth About "Good" Films

Let's start with the hardest pill to swallow: some films are too good for their own commercial success. Victoria Ogar, Head of Distribution at FilmOne Entertainment, said something in one of our conversations: "Some good films can't sell. Because they don't speak to the cinema audience."

She was being honest about a structural reality in Nollywood. Here's a difference between a film critics respect and the ones audiences rush to see. And unfortunately, those two categories don’t always overlap.

The cinema-going audience in Nigeria wants escapism. They want spectacle. They want to laugh, to feel butterflies, to see glamour and aspiration reflected back at them.

They don't necessarily want to be challenged, confronted, or asked to sit with discomfort. And this isn't unique to Nigeria; it's a global issue. 

But in a market as young and still-developing as ours, the gap between "prestige film" and "popular film" is even wider. 

We’ve seen films with beautiful cinematography, layered scripts, and award-worthy performances struggle to fill a single screen. 

Meanwhile, a romantic comedy with predictable beats and surface-level chemistry sells out entire multiplex chains. The difference? One film asks you to think. The other asks you to feel, quickly, easily, and without much effort.

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The Star Power Problem

One of the most common reasons a film fails to trend is the lack of "bankable" stars. And while it sounds superficial, the data backs it up. 

Nollywood audiences are still deeply star-driven. A film with Funke Akindele, Toyin Abraham, or Timini Egbuson will naturally have a built-in audience that shows up regardless of the story.

But introduce a brilliant newcomer or a respected theatre actor without a massive social media following? The film immediately starts at a disadvantage.

It's why Victoria Ogar mentioned that FilmOne looks at whether actors are "commercial enough" when deciding to distribute a film. It's not only about talent, it's about reach. 

Can this actor pull a crowd? Do they have the social media clout to drive ticket sales? This creates a vicious cycle. Talented actors can't become stars without lead roles in big films. But they can't get those roles because they're not yet stars. 

And so, films with incredible performances but unfamiliar faces get buried, not because they're bad, but because the market hasn't yet learned to trust new faces.

There are exceptions, of course. But they're rare. And they usually require a perfect storm of timing, marketing genius, and word-of-mouth momentum that most indie films simply can't afford to engineer.

Genre Gaps: What Nigerian Audiences Won't Watch (Yet)

Certain genres are box office poison in Nigeria, no matter how well-executed. Psychological thrillers? Difficult sell.

Nigerian audiences want their horror visceral and their thrillers straightforward. As of early November 2025, The Conjuring: Last Rites has achieved a domestic box office gross of approximately $177.7 million and an international gross of about $315.2 million, for a worldwide total of around $493 million since its release.

While our own My Mother is a Witch grossed barely ₦100 million at the Nigerian box office. Which is about $70,000. For Nigerians, anything too cerebral or ambiguous tends to confuse rather than engage.

Social realism? Even harder. Films that hold up a mirror to Nigeria's harsh realities, poverty, systemic corruption, and police brutality rarely perform well theatrically. Freedom Way, for instance, grossed barely ₦10 million in its first two weeks at the cinemas.  

People don't want to pay money to watch the same struggles they're living through. They can see that for free every day.

Period pieces? Unless it's an epic with massive scale, historical dramas struggle. There's a disconnect, perhaps, between contemporary Nigerian identity and pre-colonial or colonial-era storytelling that hasn't yet been bridged in mainstream cinema.

And then there's romance, the genre that works, but only in very specific ways.

The Romance Paradox

Romance is Nollywood's most reliable genre. But not all romance. Only a particular flavour: the kind that's aspirational, surface-level, and emotionally uncomplicated.

There’s something troubling yet undeniable: the romances that trend in Nigeria are often the ones that blur red flags and green flags into a glossy fantasy. The toxic billionaire who "changes" for the right woman. 

The love triangle where emotional manipulation is framed as passion. The whirlwind romance that substitutes grand gestures for genuine intimacy. For instance, Timini Egbuson's Reel Love.

These films work because they're easy to consume. They don't ask audiences to interrogate relationship dynamics or question gender roles. They deliver the dopamine hit of romance without the complexity of real love.

Meanwhile, films that explore love with nuance, the messy negotiations, the slow burns, the relationships that require work and compromise, struggle to find their audience. 

They're too slow, too real, too boring. Because when Nigerian audiences buy a ticket for romance, they're not looking for realism. They're looking for fantasy.

And honestly? We get it. In a country where daily life is hard, where relationships are complicated by economic stress and cultural expectations, who can blame people for wanting the fairy tale version?

But it does mean that filmmakers trying to tell more mature, grounded love stories are fighting an uphill battle.

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Marketing Misstep: When Good Films Are Sold Badly

Then there's the question of marketing, or rather, the lack of it. Nollywood's marketing problem isn't usually about money; it's about understanding what makes something shareable. 

A film can have a brilliant trailer, but if that trailer doesn't give audiences a reason to talk about it, it won't trend. 

Some films are marketed as prestige projects when they should be sold as crowd-pleasers. Others are positioned as mainstream entertainment when they're clearly niche. The misalignment between what a film is and how it's sold can kill its chances before it even opens.

And timing matters more than people realise. A light-hearted rom-com released during a heavy news cycle might get drowned out. A serious drama released during the holiday season, when everyone wants to laugh? Dead on arrival.

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Audience Behaviour: The Streaming Generation's Cinema Problem

There's also a generational shift happening that filmmakers are still learning to navigate.

Younger Nigerian audiences, the ones who grew up on Netflix and YouTube, have fundamentally different viewing habits than the generation before them. They're used to content abundance, which means their attention is harder to capture and even harder to hold.

For this audience, going to the cinema is a social event, not just a viewing experience. They're not going to watch a film; they're going to be seen, to hang out, to create content for their Instagram stories. 

Which means the films that succeed theatrically are the ones that offer a social media moment, a scene that's meme-able, a line that's quotable, a visual that's Instagrammable.

Films that don't provide these moments, no matter how well-crafted, struggle to justify the cost of a cinema ticket when the same audience can wait a few weeks and watch it on a streaming platform for free (or nearly free).

This is why certain genres, horror, action, and big-scale romance, still work in cinemas. They offer an experience. But intimate character dramas? Slow-burn thrillers? They're increasingly seen as streaming films, which means their theatrical prospects are limited from the start.

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The Festival Circuit Trap

There's also a dangerous pattern I've observed: most films that do the festival circuit often struggle when they finally get a theatrical release.

Part of this is timing; by the time a film has played multiple festivals, its "newness" is gone. The cinephiles who would've championed it have already seen it. The reviews are already written. There's no discovery left.

But it's also about positioning. Festival films often carry the "art house" label, which can be a kiss of death for mainstream audiences. People assume it's going to be slow, difficult, or pretentious. And even if the film is none of those things, the perception sticks.

We’ve seen filmmakers struggle with this: do you go the festival route and build prestige, or do you skip festivals entirely and bet everything on a strong theatrical opening? 

There's no right answer. But choosing the former often means sacrificing the latter.

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So, What's the Solution?

There isn't one clean solution. Nollywood is still finding itself. We're caught between wanting to tell authentic, challenging stories and needing to survive in a market that rewards spectacle over substance. 

We're trying to build an industry that respects artistry while also chasing the commercial success that keeps the lights on.

But awareness is the first step. Filmmakers need to be clear-eyed about what they're making and who it's for. Not every film is a cinema film. Not every film needs to trend. Some films are meant for festivals, for streaming, for a smaller but deeply engaged audience. And that's okay.

The danger is when filmmakers expect a niche film to perform like a blockbuster, or when they compromise their vision trying to please everyone and end up pleasing no one.

The industry also needs to mature in how it markets films. We need publicists and distributors who understand digital culture, who know how to create moments, who can position a film in a way that speaks to today's audience.

And perhaps most importantly, we need patience. Not every film will be an immediate hit. Some films find their audience slowly, through word of mouth, through streaming, through time. The goal isn't always to trend; sometimes it's just to exist.

Even if a film doesn't trend, even if it doesn't make money, even if only a few thousand people see it, if those people are moved, if they're changed, if they see themselves reflected on screen in a way they never have before, then the film has done its job.

Not every film can be A Tribe Called Judah. And that's okay.

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