Bollywood is king, Nollywood is queen

It’s hardly a surprise that Bollywood makes more than what Hollywood makes in a year. But if the ‘more’ is nearly double, then one needs to sit up and take note.

I said ‘nearly’, because according to the figures by Times Insight Group, India with prime producing centers at Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad made 1132 films in 2007 compared to 520 from US, 418 from Japan, and 400 from China. So the less-than-half Hollywood production doesn’t strictly compare with Bollywood’s output.

Over 3 billion people in India saw films in theaters in the same period compared to a little over 1.3 billion in the US. The figures for Japan and China are dismally low at 161 million and 196 million respectively.

Let me now share a surprise. This ClickAfrique report says that in 2006 Nollywood – the Nigerian film industry – produced 872 motion pictures compared to Bollywood’s 1091, and Hollywood’s 485.

However, despite apparent numerical strength, the ClickAfrique report reveals that the US movies continue to dominate cinema admissions around the world. All of the top 10 films seen in Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Costa Rica, Namibia, Romania and Slovenia in 2006 were US made.