It's being called one of Nollywood's most anticipated films of 2012 – Obi Emelonye's follow-up to his 2011 fantasy/adventure hit The Mirror Boy.

Titled Last Flight To Abuja, the expensive (by Nollywood standards) disaster/thriller (the first of its kind – an airplane disaster movie with special effects, shot with ARRI Alexa digital cameras) is said to be inspired by true events; an airplane suffers major mid-air problems which leads to a fatal crash.

The longer description reads:

A set of everyday Nigerian traveller’s board the last Flamingo Airways flight scheduled to fly from Lagos to Abuja on a fateful Friday night in 2006. The plane cruises at 30,000 feet, tranquil and on schedule. But like a bolt out of the blue, through a mixture of human error, technical failure and sheer bad luck, the plane rapidly develops major difficulties that sends it teetering on the brink of disaster. As the pilots fight with the controls of the stricken aeroplane, a series of flashbacks unravel the twists, turns and leaps of fate that put each passenger on the fateful flight. Young lovers, an elderly couple, a corporate party, a sportsman on the threshold of greatness; all the passengers are caught up in the nightmare scenario and sense the final moments of their lives approach. All…except one! What does he know? Will they survive…the Last Flight to Abuja?

Dun-dun-dun-DUNNNN! 🙂

Sounds like those melodramatic Airport movies of the 1970s doesn't it? I think George Kennedy was in every single one.

The Facebook page for the UK/Nollywood project says the film will make its world premiere on April 5th, although it doesn't specify where exactly. Likely in Nigeria and parts of the UK first (Emelonye's Mirror Boy had a limited run in the UK and was said to have been a box office hit, relatively).

I haven't seen The Mirror Boy so I can't offer any commentary on director Obi Emelonye's talents, but the below trailer for Last Flight To Abuja doesn't immediately win me over. Then again, it's Nollywood, and Obi has been one of those Nollywood directors pushing for the kind of quality and production values that will afford Nollywood product the same kind of worldwide respect as Hollywood films. Where Last Flight To Abuja fits into that long-term mission remains to be seen. I'm encouraged by the use of ARRI's new line of digital cameras. Those babies are a beauty.

Watch below: