This Saturday, September 26, Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) in Lagos could become the biggest cinema Nigeria has ever seen as Nollywood film Black Market attempts to break the Guinness World Records title for the largest attendance at a film screening.
The team behind the new Nollywood movie is preparing to bring 50,000 people together to watch the same film at the same time, in an ambitious attempt to set a new world record. After months of planning, publicity, partnerships and registrations, the much-anticipated event is almost here.
If everything goes according to plan and the final attendance is verified, Nollywood could end the weekend with another global record to its name.
Black Market targets 50,000 people at Tafawa Balewa Square
The number to beat is 43,624.
That record was set in the Philippines in 2015 when Felix Manalo was screened at the Philippine Arena before an enormous audience.
Black Market is aiming considerably higher, with 50,000 people expected at TBS.
The scale alone makes Saturday’s event unusual. This is not a regular movie premiere with a red carpet, invited celebrities and a few cinema screens.
Organisers are planning an eight-hour experience from 2pm to 10pm, with the red carpet beginning at 3pm and food, games, music and other activities surrounding the main screening.
The project has also attracted partners including MTN, Puma, Oraimo, Shuttlers and the Lagos State Ministry of Culture.
How organisers are preparing for the Nollywood world record attempt
Getting tens of thousands of people into one location in Lagos is no small task, and much of the preparation for the Black Market world record attempt has focused on the practical side of the event.
Producer Nora Awolowo recently explained that the team has been working with the Lagos State Government on security, traffic management and transportation.
Plans include extended transport services and buses from different locations, while the campaign has also gone directly to potential audiences through university tours and other public engagements.
The organisers have even taken the campaign into Eko Market as they push towards Saturday’s target.
Participants are also expected to be able to obtain certificates recognising their involvement in the mass-participation attempt.
What is Black Market about?
Behind all the talk about numbers, however, there is still a film to watch.
Black Market is a crime thriller directed by Fatimah Binta Gimsay and written by Gimsay and Abdul Tijani-Ahmed.
Produced by Rixel Studios in collaboration with FilmOne Studios, Signet Ring Studios and Switch Visuals Production, the film was shot in Abeokuta.
Its story follows five market women involved in a cross-border smuggling operation.
Their already dangerous world takes a darker turn when a rival group kidnaps the daughter of one of the women, forcing them into a desperate operation to bring her home.
It is a story built around crime, survival, friendship and the lengths people will go to protect their own.
Black Market cast: Lateef Adedimeji, Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman and others
The cast brings together some of Nollywood’s most recognisable faces, including Lateef Adedimeji, Linda Ejiofor-Suleiman, Uzor Arukwe, Omowunmi Dada, Ibrahim Yekini, popularly known as Itele D Icon, Scarlet Gomez, Teniola Aladese and Susan Pwajok.
Folagade Banks, Tomiwa Tegbe, Andrew Yaw Bunting, Shamz Garuba and Adeoluwa Akintoba also feature.
For Rixel Studios, led by Nora Awolowo, Black Market follows its 2025 feature Red Circle, but this time the company is taking a very different approach to introducing a film to the public.
Instead of merely asking Nigerians to watch the movie, it has built an event around the audience itself.
What the Black Market world record attempt could mean for Nollywood
That may be what makes Saturday important for Nollywood, regardless of the final number Guinness World Records verifies.
Nigeria already has one of the world’s most prolific film industries, but Black Market is testing something different: how many people can a Nigerian film mobilise around one shared experience?
If 50,000 people gather at TBS and the record is successfully broken, the photographs will travel, the number will make headlines and the achievement will belong to a Nigerian production.
More importantly, it could remind filmmakers that a movie premiere does not always have to look like every premiere that came before it.
On Saturday, there will be a movie on the screen.
But there will also be 50,000 reasons to watch what happens around it.
By Oghenekevwe Kofi, Entertainment Writer, Lagos
