The news first broke on the Internet on February 22, just two days after the film’s producers hosted members of its cast and crew to a record-breaking party.
As seen in Lagos: What The Wedding Party pirated copy looks like. Credit: TNS
Piracy rears its head again as pirated copies of the highest grossing Nollywood movie, The Wedding Party are now being sold on the streets of Lagos, Nigeria.
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This writer, for the first time, spotted pirated copies of The Wedding Party being sold on Maryland bridge in Lagos, on Sunday, March 5, 2017.
And out of curiosity, I probed one of the vendors who had advertised the movie to me.
‘Oga na five hundred naira we dey sell am now,’ he said in pidgin.
The man, who spoke Pidgin with an Igbo intonation, then added: ‘Na after one month the price go reduce to N300 or N200. This film na the hottest right now.’
The Wedding Party became the highest grossing Nigerian movie ever after earning nearly N500m since it was released in cinemas in December 2016.
It features prolific acts, including Sola Sobowale, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Adesua Etomi, Ireti Doyle , Hafiz ‘Saka’ Oyetoro, Beverly Naya and Somkele Iyamah .
Aside the pirated copies that are being sold, the movie is reportedly starting to leak online and is being shared between friends and family via USB flash drives.
Producers of The Wedding Party are still willing to make hundreds of millions through the cinemas and online platforms.
Hopefully, their plans succeed despite these shortcomings.
