First: Why am I not surprised? A fair share of Nollywood films have been made based on the cultural zeitgeist of the past. The 2011 film BlackBerry Babes was the product of a collective obsession with the BlackBerry smartphone and the exclusivity of its messaging service called BBM. Can I please have your PIN? Can I? Seriously, though, to be in possession of a BlackBerry was to be a part of a superior, elite group. It was that serious. Other coopting of canonical intellectual property can be seen in When You Are Mine, the widely-watched Mexican telenovela that made us cry, more often than not, and inspired Nollywood to execute its own version in 2007, starring Ini Edo and Emeka Ike.
The HBO fantasy series Game of Thrones is the most pirated show on the planet, and it gave us Nollywood’s The Mad King. The 2008 music-themed film Beyonce & Rihanna, featuring Nadia Buhari and Omotola Jalade Ekeinde as college rivals, latches onto the supposed rivalry between mega pop singers Beyonce and Rihanna. I could go on and on, but you already get the point.
Wakanda Forever is no different. The Marvel superhero film Black Panther was a box office success, and it transcended beyond just being a big-studio production to a celebrated cultural phenomenon. Wakanda is the fictional African country in Black Panther, and with no press cycle or trailer, Wakanda Forever is presented as a Black Panther spinoff and set in a Nigerian village. The familiar intersection of juju and comedy is present and heavy, providing a fascination for the larger, non-African audience who have already watch the films on YouTube. Films, because Wakanda Forever was released in two parts, and it can’t get anymore Nollywood than that.
Don’t worry, don’t take our word for it, you can see the whole thing on Youtube.
When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.
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