Ebola movie, 93 Days ‘cost N400m’ to produce

93 days, a movie based on Nigeria’s battle against Ebola, gulped an estimated N400 million, the producers have revealed.

Going by estimated figures, the N400 million spent on ’93 Days’ makes it the third most expensive movie ever produced in Nigeria.

93 days comes behind Half of a Yellow Sun, an adaptation of Chimamanda Adichie’s book which had an estimated budget of N1.27 billion, and The CEO, a movie by Kunle Afolayan with a budget of $2 million — over N600 million at the current exchange rate.

93 days, which was produced by Bolanle Austen-Peters, Dotun Olakunri, Pemon Rami and Steve Gukas, seeks to tell the story of the roles played by medical practitioners in containing the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

According to Austen-Peters, the original names of the Ebola victims were used and some of the scenes were shot at the original locations.

“There are so many important stories in Nigeria that could be told but because of lack of funding, we can’t tell these stories; Ebola is one of them.

“The movie title is simply the numbers of days Nigeria battled Ebola from when Sawyer arrived Nigeria to the day Nigeria was declared Ebola free by the World Health Organisation (WHO).”

Speaking on the possibility of political opposition to the movie, Olakunri said he hopes that there would be none from any quarter.

“We hope that politically, nobody will step into this because this is not about politics it’s about arts and history

“Lagos state gave us support. We tried to show in the film how the Lagos state government reacted very quickly in a positive manner to transform the wards because we were not expecting Ebola.

“We hope that we portrayed Lagos state in a very good light because Lagos state and federal government came together and did a positive thing.”

93 days, which features American actor, Danny Glover, Bimbo Akintola, Charles Okafor and Gideon Okeke, will be in cinemas across Nigeria from September 19.

One of the movie’s main characters is Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, a doctor at First Consultants Hospital, Obalende, who made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was curtailed and prevented from spreading around the cosmopolitan city of Lagos.

She would eventually die from the disease, which was brought into the country by Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American.

Adadevoh’s sacrifice, bravery and commitment to her job averted a potential large scale spread of the virus.