Exclusive: Gemini film boss reveals new tactics employed by movie pirates
Chief Femi Odunuga is the CEO Gemini Films and Marketing, a movie marketing firm that has churned out many award winning movies. He is also the marketer who discovered, promotes and markets all Odunlade Adekola movies till date. He was mentioned as the marketer that sold late actor Arakangudu’s last movie at a loss. He spoke with Naij.com in his corporate office on this and how piracy is killing the movie industry. Excerpts…
As a movie marketer, how has the piracy surge affected your business?
It is very glaring and everybody knows that the major problem we have in the entertainment industry is piracy after that you can talk about erratic power supply and the economic situation of the country. But with piracy we know how it happens. About four years back, when we release our movies the pirates will give us two weeks to sell our movies before pirating it but now they are competing with us. The same day we release movie they release theirs. If we release our movies by 10 am by 6 pm they have it duplicated thus affecting our own sales.
How do they achieve this?
Simple, all they have to do is get one original copy and dub it into many copies without anybody stopping them. The reason is that the penalty for piracy is very light and unless the federal government comes to our rescue and enact a stiffer measure this industry will just die prematurely. It is a major problem such that we invest our hard-earn money but find it difficult to make it back. Even to break even is a big problem.
How have you being coping because you are known to finance movie productions and marketing. What has been keeping you in business?
Coping? I just try to put things together to break even but the profit is not there despite that we are still surviving. I don’t have any alternative business to do for now so I have to cope.
Do you still finance movie productions or do movie producers source for money and finance their movie productions themselves?
I still finance movies and it is not all movies that the producers finance. We marketers finance most movies. Maybe 10% of movies are fully financed by the producers.
Many movie producers these days produce movies that are of cinema standard, do you still finance those set of movies?
Yes we do.
Does taking movies to the cinemas before releasing it help boost the sale of such movies or otherwise?
Any movie that goes to the cinema must be a good movie and that helps us the marketers in the area of publicity but it does not automatically mean its sales will do better but it has an added advantage.
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How do you protect you movies since piracy is killing the industry?
There is no how we can protect it for now so far we release movies all the pirate needs is just a copy of the original version and the deal will be done within a few hours. I am still in the business because I don’t want to be jobless, maybe the federal government will have time to fight piracy when they are done with Boko Haram. We are still managing and hoping that one day the government will come to our aid. Government is our only hope.
Is that why some movie marketers do not pay movie producers their money back after they might have released their movies?
I don’t know about that, all the movies I release in my company I pay the producers. There are no movies my company market at a loss; I still manage to break even at least. And talking about Arakangudu, it was seven years ago that I had any business transaction with him. His last movie that I sold was Oju Odaran Re part 1- 3 and it was not at a loss. I have never hold on to any producer’s money you can quote me.
How is the movie industry generally aside piracy?
We are all in this country experiencing the biting economy and it is affecting all businesses but we pray things get better. I am about releasing some movies now and I have my fears already but we must work to survive and since there is God we will survive. Adigun Oga Oga by Mr Latin, Omo Aje by Odunlade Adekola, Baby Mi by Fala, Oba Elesan Ni Mi by Millenium Films, Pepeye Meje by Odunlade Adekola and Yara Keje by Odunlade Adekola, Sade Pepper, Bolaji Alaga Council will be released within the next two months.
You hold a degree in marketing, how has that helped you in movie marketing?
I have been able to apply what I learnt in the classroom to what I am doing compare to my contemporaries who did not study marketing at all. Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun state in 1993.
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