Nollywood is officially in the remake season and new player Charles Okpaleke is leading the movement. Okpekele announced his Nollywood entrance with well-received Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, the sequel of the 1992 classic that kickstarted Nollywood. Since the film’s release, his company, Play Network, has acquired the rights to remake two other classics: Rattlesnake and Glamour Girls.
Now they are remaking the Zeb Ejiro’s 1992 spiritual-horror thriller, Nneka the Pretty Serpent. “Nneka is back, and this time she’s going for the jugular,” Okpaleke writes in an Instagram post announcing the remake.
Unlike Rattlesnake and Glamour Girls, details on the cast and crew on this remake are scarce, but we know it will open in cinemas this December (a month after Rattlesnake) and will be distributed by Genesis Pictures.
The original film, produced by Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, follows a mermaid disguised as a pretty lady, whose mission was to go after promiscuous married men. The movie’s star-studded cast features Ndidi Obi, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, Rita Nzelu, Ngozi Ezeonu, Sam Loco and Eucharia Anunobi.
Nneka the Pretty Serpent is one of the first Nigerian movies with the pastor-versus-demon storylines; a trope new Nollywood has abandoned with films like Sylvia and Breaking Free. It will be interesting to see how this remake will handle that aspect of the story.