Loving Itohan, the romantic drama that marks Nancy Isime’s debut as an executive producer, opened at No. 1 in Nigeria with NGN24.2m ($18,000) over the weekend of 6–8 November, ending a five-weekend run at the top for Agbara Nla: The Return, according to the data company Fusion Intelligence. The margin was NGN183,499, about $137.
Agbara Nla: The Return took NGN24.0m in its sixth weekend and still sold more tickets than any other film, 3,798 against 3,622. Its running total of NGN486.4m ($362,000) keeps it in Fusion’s all-time top 10 for Nollywood films. The market around it is setting records: Fusion puts 2026 takings at NGN15.63bn ($11.6m), already above the roughly NGN15.4bn the whole of 2025 produced.
Key facts
- Weekend of 6–8 November: Loving Itohan NGN24.2m from 3,622 admissions at 80 locations; Agbara Nla: The Return NGN24.0m from 3,798 admissions, Fusion Intelligence
- Agbara Nla: The Return total: NGN486.4m from 81,261 admissions since 1 October, NGN16.0m behind The Wedding Party 2, the next title on the all-time list
- Ramayana: Rise of a Legend opened third with NGN21.9m from 2,517 admissions, at an average ticket 27% above the market’s
- Nigeria’s 2026 box office: NGN15.63bn, 29.61% ahead of the same point in 2025 and about 1.5% above that year’s full total
- In 2025, about 22% of the year’s takings came after this point in the calendar, FilmBunch’s calculation from Fusion’s figures
How the weekend split
Cinemas took about NGN144.6m ($108,000) from roughly 21,200 admissions, up 11% on the previous weekend, Fusion said, with six new releases supplying about two-fifths of it.
Loving Itohan built through the weekend, from NGN5.3m on Friday to NGN7.9m on Saturday and NGN11.0m on Sunday. Orobosa Ikponmwen directed the Greoh Studios and NIP Studios production, released by FilmOne Entertainment, with Isime opposite Uzor Arukwe and Obehi Aburime.
The holdover fell only 13%, and ticket prices explain how it sold more seats yet finished second on money. Agbara Nla: The Return averaged about NGN6,300 per admission over the weekend, against NGN6,700 for Loving Itohan. Over its whole run the remake has averaged under NGN6,000 a ticket.
| Film | Weekend (NGN) | Admissions | Total (NGN) | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Loving Itohan | 24.2m | 3,622 | 24.2m | new, 80 locations |
| Agbara Nla: The Return | 24.0m | 3,798 | 486.4m | sixth weekend, −13% |
| Ramayana: Rise of a Legend | 21.9m | 2,517 | 22.3m | new, 61 locations; total includes previews |
| Tele X Zikora | 13.4m | n/a | 89.2m | −43% |
| Clayface | 12.7m | n/a | 66.5m |
Source: Fusion Intelligence, 6–8 November 2026. Conversions FilmBunch’s, at NGN1,344.04 to the dollar (xe.com, 8 November).
Ramayana’s premium audience
Nitesh Tiwari’s Ramayana: Rise of a Legend, released in India as Ramayana: Part One, opened in Nigeria on the weekend of its worldwide launch. Its average ticket of about NGN8,700 ($6.47), against roughly NGN6,830 for the market, points to an audience willing to pay for premium screens. Fusion gives its average per location as about NGN398,000, though its own gross and location count work out at about NGN359,000, still ahead of Loving Itohan’s NGN302,500.
Where Agbara Nla stands
Mount Zion Film Productions’ remake of its early-1990s gospel drama opened on 1 October with about NGN170.6m from previews and its first weekend. When FilmBunch reported its total at NGN408.3m on 26 October, the figure came from its distributor, Nile Entertainment. In the week to 5 November Fusion had it at NGN462.2m, past the NGN452,288,605 of Kemi Adetiba’s The Wedding Party (2016) and into the all-time top 10.
The next rung is The Wedding Party 2: Destination Dubai, Niyi Akinmolayan’s 2017 sequel, on NGN502.4m according to the database MuviDB. That is NGN16.0m away, about two-thirds of what the remake took last weekend. Call of My Life remains the year’s biggest Nollywood release, at NGN901.3m on the same list.
The ranking carries a caveat. Fusion’s regional breakdown for the week to 5 November, reported by Technext, credited 6.7% of the film’s takings to Greater Accra in Ghana, about NGN31m of the NGN462.2m then on record. Neither Fusion nor MuviDB says whether the older titles on the all-time list include Ghanaian screens, so the comparison may set totals of different scope side by side.
The year so far
The 2026 total of NGN15.63bn compares with NGN12.06bn ($9.0m) at the same point last year, a gap of NGN3.57bn. These are nominal naira, unadjusted for inflation or ticket prices, so the rise alone does not show that more people went to the cinema.
Fusion’s release list has five titles opening on 13 November, among them Ghost Soldier and Dear Ajayi, and four on 20 November, including The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Then comes December, when Nollywood traditionally releases its biggest titles.
Our reading
Passing the whole of 2025 with almost two months to spare makes a neat headline, but the like-for-like measure is the stronger one: 29.61% ahead of the same point last year. About 22% of last year’s takings arrived after this weekend, and the December season will decide how wide the final margin is.
For distributors, the weekend put three ways of selling the same market side by side. Loving Itohan won with a fresh opening at close to the market’s average price, Ramayana came close with a smaller audience paying a premium, and Agbara Nla kept the attendance lead at the lowest average ticket of the three. The next Fusion weekly will show whether the remake can find the NGN16m it needs to pass The Wedding Party 2 before the December releases take its screens.
Sources
- Film Intelligence (Fusion Intelligence), weekend digest for 6–8 November 2026, published 9 November
- Film Intelligence (Fusion Intelligence), weekly digest for 30 October–5 November 2026, published 6 November
- Technext, Nigeria’s 2026 box office passes 2025 (Fusion Intelligence regional breakdown), 7 November 2026
- MuviDB, all-time Nigerian box office list, checked 10 November 2026
- QED, Nancy Isime releases the Loving Itohan trailer, 16 October 2026
- Nollywood Reporter, Loving Itohan preview, 28 October 2026
- EbonyLife Films, announcement of The Wedding Party, directed by Kemi Adetiba, 27 April 2016
- Agbara Nla: The Return official site (Mount Zion Film Productions)
- xe.com mid-market rate, 8 November 2026 (NGN1,344.04/$)