The Nigerian Netflix series Shanty Town is unquestionably no kid’s play in terms of quality and the level of production that the television program accomplished, even just from looking at the trailer. The presentation appears to be extremely pricey. With all of the explosions, battle sequences, many locales, large cast and crew, special effects, and makeup, Shanty Town undoubtedly had a hefty production budget. But now, Nollywood actress and producer of “Shanty Town,” Ini Edo, is explaining to us just how much the program cost to make and why she nearly fled when she saw the TV series’ budget during an interview with Hip TV. This are the words of Ini Edo.
During her interview, Ini Edo when asked “Where did the Shanty Town idea come from and why did you decide to co-produce it?” responded saying:
INI EDO: Shanty Town, how did it begin? I mean, I’ve been looking for a story to tell, to produce. I’ve always wanted to make a film that would sort of shift things, shift the narrative in Nollywood. I know that I have the heart to do it if I find a good project. So my partner, Chichi approached me with this script and said “oh babe, I’d like for us to do this together, take a look at the script and see what you think”. So I read the script. I called her, I said “Babe, ehn? How can we even? Have you read this script?” And she goes “Abi oh”, I said “Ha! This one oh, it would be up to N50 million, that was even the first thing I even said in my head” and she was like “Ah, e go pass, e go double”. So we just left the script and forgot about it. Then six months down the line, we call up each other again. I’m like “Hey! What’s up with that script? Let’s read that script again”. We went back and read it again and she called me back and said “what do you think?” I said “I don’t know how I read it before but the one I’m reading now, that money that you and I were calling, it won’t even go anywhere for us to do this job so let’s just know that.” She said, “but are you up to it?” We asked each other, and we said “okay, let’s do it.” So we started putting teams together, called up somebody that was going to give us a proper breakdown of the script. We saw the budget, I wanted to run again. But we now said okay, because we insisted on certain kind of things to be done for ‘Shanty Town’ so it was like you’ve designed a house, and now you have to buy everything according to your design. So we spent at it. It was tough, it was tough, but we did it!
Wow! Not the budget being almost, if not, double of N50 million naira! That is very expensive. What do you think about the show Shanty Town and are you surprised to learn that the show cost this much to make?