It feels great to know that other Ghanaians are beginning to see the light. The mass “thievery” of the work of other movie writers and novelists outside Ghana by our so called “Ghanaian movie writers and storytellers” is becoming too annoying and shameful.
I am glad NewsOne has decided to hit on this. Apart from the stealing of storylines, “common” movie titles are also dubbed. It is even worse when these directors and writers start to think the movie viewing population are some ignorant individuals.
Read below for more from NewsOne….
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For a very long time, I have tried to understand why our Ghanaian movie directors and producers did not pick books by renowned writers like John Grisham, Jeffery Archer, Sidney Sheldon and make movies out of them.
Well, apparently, I have been wrong all this while, as they seem to be ‘stealing’ stories of these accomplished writers without giving them any credit.
Their excuse that they want to direct and produce movies with an African story does not hold because they do not even pick the works of African writers like Ngugu Wa Thiong’o, Chinua Achebe, Atukwei Okai and several other big names in Africa literature. I am not a big fan of movies made in Ghana or Nigeria at large, having been disappointed on several occasion by some of these local movies. I cursed my stars for wasting my precious time to watch a movie like ‘Sexy Angel’, Hot Fork’ etc and since then, I vowed never to watch any local movie.
But I hear about a new movie, ‘Turn Me On’ which I thought would be interesting. And after watching it, I doffed my hat for Priscilla Agyeman ‘writer’ Of the Movie ‘turn Me On (for God’s sake, where from this title, who is turning who on who?) I told a colleague about the movie, feeling excited that at least, for the first time, a Ghanaian scriptwriter had done a marvelous job.
The movie is about a successful man who was murdered, leaving behind three legitimate daughters and property worth about four million Ghana cedis. In fact, I was going on and on until my friend started telling me the storyline. I paused a little, wondering how he knows the plot well since he has never watched local movies. My friend then told me the movie’s plot was ‘stolen’ from a novel originally written by Sidney Sheldon called ‘Morning, Noon and Night in 1995. The supposed scriptwriter of ‘Turn Me On’ dubbed the entire plot of Morning, Noon and Night and even maintained the first names of the characters in the movie!!!
OMG! How can this be? One picks someone’s novel, makes a movie out of it and keeps all the credit to him or herself. For Christ sake, the Harry Potter series were based on a novel written by J. K. Rowling and was duly acknowledged. Behaviours such as these can only be found in poverty-stricken countries like Ghana where the legitimate owners cannot sue these plagiarists.
After all, there is nothing here that will make someone come all the way from Europe, Asia and the Americas to sue them. By the way, do you know that one of the latest moves in town, ‘Blackmail’ is a copied version of a 2004 award winning India movie tiled ‘Aitraaz? It has been copied from A to Z, yet no recognition was given to the original writer.
I can mention thousands of such movies whose storylines and plots have been copied by these local writers without acknowledging the original authorities. I do not want to conclude that there are no creative scriptwriters here in Ghana. I believe that these so-called movie directors and producers always want the easy way out. They do not want to invest.
A friend told me about a renowned movie director cum producer who turned him down when he presented him with a script. He did not even read the content, let alone hear the price it was going for. Rather this producer preferred to plagiarise Indian movies and repackage it into English and Twi then present them to the Ghanaian consumer. Please let us be serious in this nascent industry of ours if we really want to grow and become like Hollywood and Bollywood.
Let us be creative and write our own stories. And if we can’t, let us give credit where it is due, use good scripts, good directors, splendid cast and improvise so that we can have movies worth buying and watching. The critical eye is still watching and will ‘hammer’ where necessary.
Source: News One
wow am really shocked! GHANA movie makers stop being so michleonss! ughh
its a sad truth. MANY MANY of Venus Films movies are from Bollywood storylines.
But of course the west will never sue a Ghana director cause they think these blocs are poor SIKE
waao good one there Gossip mama, its high time these people are brought to books,they take credits for peoples hard works, hahahahahahaha shame on all those who know the right things and dont do it, their cups will be full one of these days.
Why are you surprise Gossip Mama??????? Ghanaians remake movies from their own neighbor Nigerians so how much more Hollywood and Bollywood.
Here is some of the movies Ghanaian writer/producer/director Abdul Salam Mumuni and Frank Rajah Arase has remake: Royal Battle – Nigerian movie – Unbreakable Affair, Her Excellency – Nigerian movie – Only for Love, Temptation – Hollywood movie – Derailed, The Beast – Hollywood movie – Fear, The Game – Bollywood movie – Race, Tears of Womanhood – Bollywood movie – Kabhi Khushie Kabhi Gham.
These are some of the movies Ghanaians have remake in the past. If you are going to remake someone’s hard work then you might us well do it right.
Ghanaians need to upgrade and do better than this. Some Nigerian story writters do the same thing too. I love Shirley Frimpong Manso’s stories because she writes her own stories and shows her hardwork.
It really pisses me off as to why some Ghanaians don’t put effort in their movies and just copy from others. I hope this stops soon.
@Adwoa, dont worry since Nigerians and Ghanaians producer are only meant 4 copy and paste 4rm Hollywood and Bollywood.
I have said it and will say it again. I will never waste my hard earned money or financial aid balance lol on any worthless movie from Ghana..What does these producers and directors takes as for menn? I wouldn’t mind buying movies from Shirley and Leila thou..They are the only producers plus chikas that seems to care about our industry..The rest can take a nap..mo nko da b3bi kuraa na muugu y3nim asi dodo ad3n..no wonder why their movies can’t win any awards.
This is not good.Where is their creativity but anyway I was reading an article the last time and a movie director claimed “everystory has been told before” .
I don’t have any problem with copying but why can’t they give credit to the original writers….
and this so call turn me on is the most useless of them all.
Y R U JUS SAYING ITS GHANA NIGERIANS ND MANY AFRICAN COUNTRIES DO IT TOO SO DONT BLAME GHANA ALONE
The main problem is the notion dat anything western is the best.Dats why I become very surprised when people go crazy abt some of these movies and make it luk as if they ‘re the best ever.No wonder when u critize them abt their porn scenes they’ll tell u they’re imitating hollywood.But it’s not only Ghana but in Nigeria movies as well.There’re a lot of stories yet to be told but these people rather prefer to copy other people’s stories to ours.Wat a pity.
Finally it has come to light!!!!! its abt time
This is news. How will this play out in the end?
@ghallday,loooool i guess they all guilty until proven innocent
I think it will only stop once Hollywood, Bollywood movie executives get a team of lawyers, Interpol to take Ghana movie companies into litigation …thats the only way it will stop. Cause I do not see African’s boycotting Ghana films in the near future for the sake of plagiarism.
n so help us Lord..
guys , compare the movie (the king is mine ,starring john dumelo, nadia buari and jackie . to ( the other boleyne girl , starring scarlet johansson, eric bana and nathalie portmam..)…a friend of mine would say ditodito ..gullible ghallywood and nollywood, pls give recognitions where its due .
ghana movies sucks badly. get a grip guys
@cindy, not only ghana movies nigerians copy too.
I think you should rephrase the title..because it’s not only ghana buh Africa as a whole…&| then we wonder why africa can’t go far..smh
Look, I think Hollywood and the west in general does not care. Cause I know when copyCats happen in the west they sue the hell out of eachother like the original writer of THE MATRIX sued the wakowski brothers and the company who put out the movie same goes for GOOD HAIR which was even stopped from release till after litigation. If the west don’t care then I guess this will keep going on.
At least this is clean money and not drug/prostitution/blood money thats getting these plagiarized films made. But dang is a shame cause there are some truly creative Ghanaian writers out there
Ama Atta Aidoo’s CHANGES for instance could be a great film staring Juliet, Ama K., and Anang and since she is the best, Shirley Frimpong Manso could direct this chick flick-book.
Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s THE RIVER BETWEEN, albeit a Kenyan circumcision story could work in Ghana cause this ish still goes on in remote parts of Ghana and since its mostly a teen audience that kid who played Juliet’s 16yr old lover in 4Play could be the lead and the sisters in the book could be easily casted.
Amu’s THE BEAUTIFUL ONE”S ARE NOT YET BORN, this novel centered in Cape Coast area could really do amazing things for the trend of pre/post colonial Ghana on film.
Lesley Lokko’s entire novel collection could be a great transplant for the Hot Fork director to tackle since he seems to be leading the sex-induced movie plots
Chinua Achebe’s NO LONGER AT EASE will spell gold for Mercy Johnson, Steph Okereke, Van Vicker, Olu Jacobs should be be directed by Emem Isong….I’d really like to see THINGS FALL APART tackled as well but I think perhaps only Jetta Amatta could do it justice(cause till date he’s the only GH or Nja director cool enough to tackle the issue of the TransAtlantic slave trade)
The are countless more novels, thousands if you consider Sub Saharan Africa alone. Sometimes I wish I was a director so that I can bring some of these amazing works to film. Is it that hard? seriously these GhallywoodNollywood people-in the words of “nanayaa”
“..mo nko da b3bi kuraa na muugu y3nim asi dodo ad3n..”
why only ghana? is it becos ghana is developing now or what any negativety about movies sud be ghana why ? this goes 2 all africans not ghana only pls let ghana be ok
wow i lke dis n is very true n even de popular movie the DNA test was stolen from an uncommon nigeria movie ditodito……no bend, no curve
Lmbo@ repackaging the indian movie in English & Twi
Hahahahhaahhaahhaahhaahhahahahhahahahahahha
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