When RollCallAfrica reviewed Call of My Life in May, we scored it 7.2 — Watchable — and made a specific argument: that the film was exactly as ambitious as it needed to be and delivered on that ambition without compromise, anchored by Uzoamaka Power’s refusal to treat her heroine’s wanting as a flaw to be corrected. The audience has now returned a verdict of its own, and it is emphatic.
Call of My Life is the highest-grossing Nollywood film of 2026. The romantic comedy — Dammy Twitch’s feature directorial debut, written by and starring Uzoamaka Power, produced by Bluhouse Studios and distributed by FilmOne Entertainment — has crossed ₦498.8 million in cumulative box office and grossed US$365,915 across the West African market. It topped the Nigerian chart for four consecutive weekends and has secured a place among the Top 10 Nollywood releases in history. FilmOne marked the milestone with a public thank-you to West African audiences.
What the Number Confirms
The commercial achievement confirms something specific about the relationship between this film and its audience. Call of My Life did not open at a record-breaking number and then decline. It built. It held the number one position across four weekends, which is the signature of a film succeeding through word of mouth rather than opening-weekend marketing spend. People saw it, told other people to see it, and those people came. That is the most durable form of box office success, and it is the form that is hardest to manufacture and most meaningful when it occurs.
For a romantic comedy to lead the Nollywood year is itself notable. The films that typically dominate the Nigerian box office are the star-driven ensemble comedies and the franchise epics — the Funke Akindele vehicles, the holiday-window blockbusters. A romance led by Uzoamaka Power, a performer who is respected but not in the top commercial tier of Nollywood star power, reaching number one and staying there is a result that runs against the usual logic of what drives Nigerian theatrical success. It suggests the audience responded to the film itself rather than to the names attached to it.
The 7.2 and the ₦498.8M
RollCallAfrica’s review and the box office result are not in tension. We said the film was a well-made, emotionally calibrated crowd-pleaser that delivered exactly what it set out to deliver, with a feminist argument running quietly through a mainstream romantic comedy. A 7.2 is the score of a film that is very good at being what it is without reaching for more. The ₦498.8 million is the audience confirming that being very good at what it is was exactly enough. The critical assessment and the commercial result describe the same film accurately from two different angles.
The deeper significance is for Bluhouse Studios and for Uzoamaka Power. Bluhouse — which also produced Freedom Way — now has the highest-grossing Nollywood film of the year, built around a woman who wrote her own lead role. That is a specific kind of commercial validation for a specific kind of filmmaking: technically polished, creatively specific, centred on Nigerian women who are not asking permission. The market has rewarded it at the highest level. The next films from that creative circle will be financed on the strength of this result.
— Rotimi Fash. RollCallAfrica, Lagos. 29 June 2026. Sources: FilmOne Entertainment official statements, BusinessDay (June 2026 — box office), Broadcast Media Africa (11 June 2026 — Call of My Life milestone).
