Charles Okpaleke is a Nigerian businessman and film producer. His debut film, Living In Bondage: Breaking Free won seven awards at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards 2020 including the Best Movie (West Africa) and Best Overall Movie categories. He has also acquired the rights to remake Nollywood classics including Rattle Snake, Nneka the Pretty Serpent and Glamour Girls. Charles is also a hospitality and entertainment entrepreneur best known for being the cofounder of Play Network Africa, Play network studios, amongst many other businesses.
Who is Charles Okpaleke?
Charles Okpaleke is a businessman. I am a lifestyle entrepreneur, a family man and a God fearing individual that puts people at the heart of everything he does. I consider myself a very compassionate person. I am the kind of man that dares to push the envelope in everything I decide to pursue. I am constantly thinking about ways to improve and reinvent my business, and myself, whether or not I have a model to study. I can be extremely unpredictable, especially in business. What a lot of people will ordinarily term stressful, or frustrating in business, will easily make me extremely excited. I love a good challenge! I am an extremely private, and some will say quiet person, though I lead a public life by virtue of the industry I have chosen to pursue a career in.
Tell me about Play Network and also about Play Network Studios
The Play Network has evolved into so many things these days, but in a few words, I’d term the Play Network a business and lifestyle powerhouse in hospitality and entertainment.
We started off as a community of like-minded people, albeit a few, who enjoyed talking business during the day, and didn’t mind a good social gathering at night. I had opened a sports bar and grill with my brothers Elvis and Jeffery in 2009, and we’d have a few people come over to have real conversation, while having a good time with friends. We made sure we didn’t get too obsessed with the numbers, as we were more interested in real, long term, sustainable and organic growth. Rather than marketing our bar as just another sports bar, we positioned it as a networking destination. We were more interested in building a community. Our sports bar soon grew into a nightclub, and we quickly adopted the slogan – Play is not a club, it is a network of friends. That slogan stuck, and continues to do so till this day. What had started off as a small sports bar and grill metamorphosed into what we know as the Play Network today. We were extremely daring and dogged towards community building, impact and value exchange, above everything else, including profit, and it paid off, thankfully.
The Play Network today has evolved into a Nigerian holding company housing over 15 successful businesses in entertainment, hospitality and nightlife, and the Play Network Studios, was a natural result of that organic growth.
Read also: New Nollywood: A potential investment catalyst
Why did you decide to go into filmmaking and give us an insight into how and why you delved into buying the rights to old Nollywood titles?
Having strongly positioned the Play Network in hospitality, nightlife and entertainment, I had and still have every intention to maximise the equity of the brand through the delivery of excellent and well thought out projects, be they in familiar or unfamiliar turf. I had just opened up a new bar in Abuja at the time, and I was thinking to myself, the question every true businessman will ask himself, what next? As soon as the idea of venturing into Nollywood hit me, I discussed it with my wife. She was extremely excited about the idea and we immediately began exchanging ideas. Through our casual discussions on how best to successfully penetrate the already well-established industry, the idea for remaking nollywood classics hit, and we decided on Living in Bondage – a classic story rich in our cultural heritage that is relatable, interesting, nostalgic, and impressionable, being the first ever movie that birthed the Nollywood industry in the first place. It was perfect! I immediately contacted a long time friend of mine, Ramsey Nouah, and he was just as excited about the idea as we were. Within a week, we had secured all the rights, drawn up a commencement plan and kicked off the project, birthing the Play Network Studios.
We see these huge box office numbers (Living in Bondage did over 100 million Naira), is the industry as lucrative as it looks from the outside?
The truth is that I am barely a year old in the Nollywood industry, and at this point in time, I am not as interested in the numbers as I am with the delivery of excellence. Living in Bondage did extremely well financially, but I also spent a lot of money producing the body of work that was released. I am a businessman, and at the end of the day, I won’t venture into a for-profit business without doing the groundwork as to whether or not the business will be lucrative in the long term. I believe that the industry is a lucrative one. I am however at this point in time, more interested in investing heavily into the Play Network Studios – the brand, the people and the movies, as opposed to recording profit.
Congratulations on your achievements thus far as an executive producer, please share your experience as an EP for Rattlesnake and some of the other titles in the works
Thank you. The truth is that being an Executive Producer for movies like that which we produce is no easy feat. We put our heart and soul into these movies, and so naturally, the financial and mental strain is sometimes unparalleled. This is especially so in my case and that of the key people I work with, as none of us have the experience one would expect to be able to produce the body of work that we have. We are all learning on the job. I am learning on the job. However like I said earlier, I love a good challenge, so I would typically see something that has every potential to break some other person as a big joke, and I’d keep forging ahead regardless.
Tell us about the casting of your movies
I am not as anal when it comes to the casting of my movies, as I trust the judgement of the directors and other producers I have worked with so far. The only thing I’d insist on most times is that where we can, we favour actors that have the required talent, but not so much the desired popularity or visibility in Nollywood. There is young, fresh and untapped talent in the industry, and I want to be the one to take a chance on them to give them that opportunity. I am learning on the job and I believe that as long as others have the determination and resolve that I do, they should be given the chance to prove themselves, to learn on the job too.
What lessons have you learned from Living in Bondage, which you’re applying to upcoming titles?
I have learned that to make an outstanding movie, you must be willing to put your money where your mouth is. There is no room for cutting corners. If you attempt to cut corners, even in minute ways, it will show in the results you get. It is really that simple. Being someone that will never attach my name to a substandard body of work, I have learned to put my best foot forward from the onset and not bother trying to cut costs unnecessarily in a way that will negatively impact the desired outcome.
What is the most difficult production problem you’ve had to face thus far?
The most difficult production problems I have encountered hands down will have to do with budgeting. It is ridiculous! You might set aside a hundred million naira for a project, confident it will be more than sufficient to produce the desired outcome, but some way, some how, you find yourself spending way over budget. In the case of Living in Bondage, we spent more than double of what we had initially set out to spend. As a businessman I’d sometimes find myself thinking about all the other things I could do with the funds allocated to those additional unexpected expenses, but the truth is that in the end, I love the thrill and will not have it any other way.
How is the collaborative process between yourself, your partner Chris and Ramsey Nouah who is once again on the director’s seat?
In one word, the collaborative process is seamless. Those are my brothers! It helps a great deal that they pay incredible attention to detail in the same way that I do, albeit in different ways, and so we understand each other without trying too hard. It also helps that we share similar values – excellence, integrity, honesty and hard work, and so even where there are minor disagreements, there is that mutual trust and respect that prevents us from losing focus and derailing us from producing an excellent body of work.
I’m sure the pandemic affected production – how were you able to push through?
We are a very determined team at the Play Network Studios and so as long as there was even the slightest possibility of producing our 2020 movies in a safe manner, while maintaining the quality we have become synonymous with, we were never going to let the pandemic stop us. We are not perfect, but we make sure we do the very best we possibly can, irrespective of external circumstances. We knew we would have to put in some extra work to produce Rattle Snake: The Ahanna Story and Nneka the Pretty Serpent, being our 2020 projects. We also knew that we would likely experience challenges unique to the economic climate caused by the pandemic. Rather than let those factors discourage us from producing the movies all together, we adjusted our mindsets proportionately to the realities on ground, and put our best foots forward the best way we could.
What can we expect from Play Network Studios in 2020|2021 and beyond?
Without letting out too much, those that have already seen our movie Rattle Snake: The Ahanna Story which premiered in Lagos on the 11th of November and is currently showing in cinemas nationwide already are a step ahead as far as knowledge on what is to come from Play Network Studios in the coming months. We also have our second movie for 2020, Nneka the Pretty Serpent, scheduled for release in the cinemas on the 18th of December 2020. In 2021 we have plans for viewer favourites, Glamour Girls and Osuofia in Miami, and they do not even begin to scratch the surface as far as the bigger picture is concerned. We are open, eager and excited about the exploration of new genres and strategies in the coming months/ years, as we continue to push the envelope on what is possible and achievable in new generation Nollywood, as we continue to deliver excellent, well thought out movies that we can all be proud of as products of Nigerian talent and investment.
How would you advise your younger self?
I would advise myself to become more daring sooner, not to disrespect myself by giving fear a lasting chance. I have learned that fear is a façade, a figment of our imagination. And even where I find that fear crippling in, being an imperfect human being, I would advise myself to find my way back, as soon as possible.
Without sounding cliché, there is no greater truth, than the fact that ones mind can achieve absolutely anything it can conceive. We just need to permit ourselves the audacity to dream, and dream endlessly. The beauty is in the journey, in the ups and downs. That is what we get to look back upon with pride. It is not a trap, it is not just talk, it is a hard-core fact. The earlier we embrace that fact, the sooner we start living our lives on earth to the full, and without limits, as I believe God intended for us.
