Nigeria’s movie industry stands at an interesting crossroads. Spurred by nostalgia and undeniable box office success, with domestic revenue increasing 125% to ₦3.5 billion in 2024 from 2023, Nollywood is actively looking back. Sequels and reboots like Living in Bondage: Breaking Free in 2019 and Rattlesnake: The Ahanna Story in 2020 demonstrated the commercial prowess of legacy intellectual property. They prove modern audiences are starved for classic stories with new twists. Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, in particular, was declared a classic, proving so convincingly how a remake can resound successfully when the original is respected and its scope extended.

This wave of remakes in modern times is, however, curiously picky. While some popular titles get the limelight, a bunch of culturally resonant and story-wise strong classics lie in the shadows. This passionately prepared disorganisation poses questions: Why, if Nollywood is drawing on its heritage, are so many of its originary and provocative tales being set aside? This loss is not merely a loss of commercial resources, but also an elision of the industry’s rich cultural heritage and its potential to speak to contemporary Nigerian realities in even more profound ways.

Ranging across the terrain of remakes, one finds a variety. The successes are clear in a tested formula: raised production values, deeper character development, and an appeal to nostalgia as brought up to date. Living in Bondage: Breaking Free succeeded by building on the repercussions of Andy Okeke’s initial contract through new characters.

Rattlesnake: The Ahanna Story, in some critical observed narrative tropes, had an action-packed, visually stylised heist experience that remained faithful to the original’s gritty action roots. Conversely, flops like the Nneka the Pretty Serpent remake illustrate the pitfalls. Critics across the board panned its execution as dry and incoherent, blaming a failure to adopt the original’s potent mix of folklore and female vengeance for a gripping modern thriller.

The Glamour Girls nollywood remake traded away the original’s dark look at socio-economic pressures coercing women into tough decisions for all external glamour, forgoing its social commentary. These flops usually result from not grasping the heart of the original’s appeal or not investing in good scripts and direction. Even the Aki and Paw Paw remake, as much as it raked in extremely high box office profits, had a mixed reception for banking on nostalgia with a poor script.

Beyond the well-trodden grounds of Living in Bondage and Aki and Paw Paw lies Nollywood’s rich but untapped back catalogue. These are unique stories, full of culture, and dramatically relevant to contemporary Nigerian experience.

Consider Igodo: The Land of the Living (1999) as an example. This early fantasy saga assembled a band of heroes on a dangerous quest to shatter a magical curse. A remake would be the Nigerian answer to leading global fantasy franchises. Imagine drawing on contemporary visual effects and production design to realise fully its mythological creatures, mystical forests, and ancestral temples. The prevailing themes – collective sacrifice, fighting ancestral evil, conflict between the material and spiritual worlds – are perfectly suited to the world’s appetite for high-risk fantasy, but remain firmly rooted in Igbo cosmology. Its ensemble structure offers rich soil for developing complex character arcs.

Equally good is Blood Money (1997). There are few genres that lend themselves more handily to a revival than the “Golden Age” Nollywood horror-thriller. Blood Money delved into the terrifying world of ritual murders carried out for cash, a topic eerily topical with regular rumours in recent years of rituals in relation to cybercrime and the relentless pursuit of ill-got gains. It would have been a modern reinterpretation that looked beyond simple scares and given us a blistering, socially conscious psychological horror film. It could have outlined the poisonous psychology of greed, desperation brought on by inequality, and occultism-fueled societal phobias – all only hinted at in the original because it was technologically constrained. It would not have been nostalgia, but a scary, powerful mirror held up against modern Nigerian anxieties.

And then there’s Karishika (1996), another reliable 90s horror classic featuring a sensual female demon. A remake provides a golden opportunity for feminist reinterpretation. Rather than being a one-dimensional temptress, Karishika could be a more complex character – a woman brutalised by patriarchal or societal structures, a figure of supernatural power as an act of radical vengeance. This approach could call upon contemporary discourse on gender, power dynamics, and agency to reimagine an ancient parable as a bold exploration of female anger and tenacity, all within a chilling supernatural context.

Much-loved comedy Osuofia in London (2003) by Nkem Owoh is humorous but categorically of its time. A “spiritual sequel” or legacy sequel is a more intelligent route to take than an overt remake. Imagine Osuofia’s tech-savvy grandson, raised with one foot in Nigerian culture and the other in global digital existence, suffering from reverse culture shock when he returns to his village or splits his time between a hybrid Nigerian-British existence. This would be capable of mining humour out of present-day problems like the “Japa” syndrome, the complexities of modern diaspora identity, the clash between tradition and aggressive globalisation, and the juvenility of social media influence, without losing the heart and satire of the original. 

Even the flopped Glamour Girls (1994) remake shows that there was a title worth a genuine reimagining. The 2022 remake failed because it lost the gritty social commentary of the original. A new Glamour Girls could be an innovative, anthology-type drama in the world of Lagos’ high-end social scenes or thriving influencer economy. Every episode could explore the complex, often dangerous, power negotiations of sex, money, and survival taken up by different women within a patriarchal order. It requires bold writing, high-level performances, and a commitment to meeting uncomfortable realities of class and gender in modern Nigeria, achieving the potential the originals envisioned.

Restoring these classics effectively requires more than bigger budgets. It requires a plan. First, embrace “elevated” genre storytelling. Igodo needs to engage in mythological battles against gravity. Blood Money needs to use horror to expose decay in society. The remake needs to ask: What does this story say about Nigeria in the present? Second, reinterpret, not copy. Dumb copies fail. Modern Karishika requires sophisticated character creation. New Osuofia stories need to speak to today’s transnational world. Honour the original’s spirit, but find its significance for the viewer in 2025.

Third, leverage new production infrastructures and opportunities for collaboration. Utilise projects promoting international co-productions and festival exhibitions. Pursue co-productions for shared financing and expertise. Target international streaming platforms hungry for distinctive overseas fare. Fourth, walk on eggshells around cultural sensitivities. Religious conservatism that drove horror to the edges remains powerful. Frame tales like Blood Money and Karishika as morality tales or social commentary rather than occult romance. Partner with platforms offering direct audience engagement if needed, emphasising their value as cultural artefacts exploring local mythology.

Fifth, invest in development and authenticity. Weak remakes failed because of poor scripts. Invest in extensive research and writing. Co-produce with custodians of cultures, especially for myth-rich stories—cast actors capable of acting with rich emotional undertones.

Nollywood’s remake mania is an expression of artistic and commercial self-assurance, but the trend is currently too restrictive. The industry has a gigantic, unexploited repository brimming with culturally relevant, theme-rich, and commercially viable stories. Films like Igodo, Blood Money, Karishika, and even the detested Glamour Girls are not mere nostalgia but unique genres, origin myth-solving exercises, and explorations of enduring social phobias. To remake them is not merely a matter of riding on the coat tails of past success; it’s a work in cultural appropriation and artistic broadening.

By fearlessly reinterpreting these stories with contemporary relevance and production values, Nollywood can present the world with the full depth and diversity of its storytelling heritage, best describe the multilateral richness of the Nigerian experience, and solidify its position as a world storytelling power. The archives are waiting. It’s time to answer.