Call of My Life did not wait for December to become Nollywood’s biggest theatrical story of 2026.
Dammy Twitch’s romantic comedy has reached approximately ₦893 million at the West African box office, extending the run that made it the year’s highest-grossing Nollywood title. The film opened in Nigeria on 15 May, built through repeated weekends and later expanded into international theatrical dates.
The number is impressive. The calendar is the more important result.
Nollywood’s largest cinema grosses have become closely associated with December, when holiday travel, group outings, aggressive campaigns and a dense concentration of stars turn filmgoing into an event. Call of My Life has built a near-billion-naira run from a May opening. It suggests that the audience can sustain a major local hit outside the industry’s most protected corridor.
READ ALSO: Call of My Life became 2026’s Nollywood leader after four weekends at number one.
From Opening Weekend to Long Run
The film’s commercial strength has not been one explosive weekend followed by a collapse. Earlier in its run, FilmOne reported that it had held the top position for four consecutive weekends and entered Nollywood’s all-time top ten. By late June, it had passed ₦628 million. The new ₦893 million total reflects continued accumulation after the launch campaign.
That shape matters. A long run gives distributors more time to convert awareness into tickets, allows word of mouth to reach people who did not respond immediately and reduces dependence on one expensive opening-week push.
It also indicates that the film’s core proposition travelled. Uzoamaka Power wrote and stars as Soluchi, a call-centre employee rebuilding her romantic life after a breakup. Zubby Michael, Andrew Yaw Bunting, Beverly Osu, Nkem Owoh and Patience Ozokwor broaden the cast across generations and West African audience groups. Blessing Uzzi produced through Bluhouse Studios, with FilmOne handling distribution.
The romantic-comedy format is familiar. The combination of star recognition, a clear emotional promise and a story legible across Nigeria and Ghana made the product easy to communicate.
December Is an Advantage, Not a Law
Holiday releases still hold structural benefits. Families have more shared time. Diaspora visitors increase disposable spending. Brands and cinemas build campaigns around the season. Producers can use premieres, fashion and celebrity culture to turn a film into part of the social calendar.
The disadvantage is congestion. Several major local films compete for the same premium showtimes, press attention, influencer support and opening-week money. A non-December film gives up the seasonal lift but may gain space.
Call of My Life shows what can happen when a commercially accessible film enters that space with enough marketing and exhibition support to remain visible. Its achievement is not that May has replaced December. It is that the market has produced evidence that December is no longer the only credible route to an exceptional gross.
READ ALSO: Nollywood’s first-half box office held steady, and holding steady was the problem.
The ₦1 Billion Question
At ₦893 million, the film sits close enough to ₦1 billion for the threshold to become part of the public conversation. The remaining distance should not distort the achievement.
Box-office reporting must distinguish Nigeria from West Africa, gross revenue from producer receipts and nominal records from admissions. Ticket-price increases mean a higher naira gross does not automatically represent a proportionate increase in people inside cinemas. The industry still lacks consistent public reporting of admissions, screen counts, weekly theatre retention and revenue shares.
For that reason, the strongest claim is the one the available data supports: Call of My Life is the highest-grossing Nollywood film of 2026 so far and an unusually large hit from outside the December corridor.
The commercial lesson is not “release every big film in May”. It is that producers should examine the full calendar for periods where an audience-ready title can secure showtimes, retain screens and build over several weekends without being crushed by seasonal competition.
A New Kind of Event Film
Nollywood event cinema has often been defined by spectacle, ensemble casts and December campaigns. Call of My Life is smaller in concept. Its event value came from emotional accessibility and repeatable recommendation.
That expands the definition of what a box-office leader can be. A romantic comedy centred on a working woman, directed by Dammy Twitch and led by Uzoamaka Power has competed at a scale usually reserved for holiday tentpoles.
READ ALSO: Uzoamaka Power became the Commercial Index story of the first half of 2026.
The next test is not simply whether the film crosses ₦1 billion. It is whether distributors use this result to build stronger release corridors across the rest of the year. One exceptional film can break a calendar pattern. A functioning industry must prove it can repeat the result.
RollCallAfrica box-office analysis based on distributor-announced West African grosses and published release records available on 12 September 2026. Gross revenue is not producer income, and the reported figure is not treated as an independently audited admissions count.
