Jide Kosoko speaks on the debt he’s carrying after his big cinema gamble

Jide Kosoko has opened up about a side of filmmaking that doesn’t get talked about much.

The veteran actor says he’s in debt after his historical film, Eleko: Oba Esugbayi, failed to earn back the over ₦300 million it cost to make.

He shared this on the African A-List podcast, explaining that the money didn’t come from his own pocket. It came from investors who expected returns, and those returns never arrived. “Do I have 300 million?” he asked, making it clear he could never have funded the project alone.

According to him, a number of things happened along the way, the little the film earned was shared among the people involved, and he’s the one still carrying the debt.

The film was his first cinema production. It premiered on March 14, 2026 and opened in cinemas nationwide on March 20, timed to catch the Sallah and Easter holiday season. Days after release, Kosoko said on Instagram that it made about ₦18.3 million in its opening weekend.

The story itself is rooted in Lagos history. It follows Oba Esugbayi Eleko, the Lagos monarch who stood up to British colonial rule in the early 20th century. Femi Branch plays the king, while Kosoko, Femi Adebayo, Saidi Balogun, Dele Odule and Yinka Quadri are also in the cast. Kosoko produced it under his Jide Kosoko Film Presentation banner, and Genesis Pictures handled distribution.

His comments come just weeks after Ramsey Nouah said that taking a film to cinemas isn’t always a smart financial decision. Nouah pointed out that only a small fraction of cinema releases recover their costs and make a profit, and that many producers lose money even after spending heavily on advertising and promotion. Kosoko’s experience now gives that warning a very real example.

At the time of the original report, neither Jide Kosoko nor the film’s distributor had said anything more.

Still, the story leaves Nollywood with something to think about. A strong cast, a story from Lagos history and a holiday release window can still struggle to bring in the crowds, and for producers weighing the cinema route, that’s a lot of risk to carry.