Faith-based Nollywood film Agbara Nla: The Return has posted the biggest first-day gross for any Nollywood title in preview history, taking in ₦70 million from 12,134 admissions ahead of its official nationwide release, according to box office figures shared by NGA Box Office on X.

The preview screening placed the film at No. 1 for the period and delivered the biggest single-day preview gross ever recorded in West Africa. Its 12,134 admissions also stand as the biggest first-day admissions figure of 2026, while the ₦70 million take marks the biggest single-day October gross, giving the month an early headline moment before the film's theatrical run formally began. Because preview takings are recorded before a title's official rollout, the ₦70 million does not yet reflect the film's formal theatrical run, which begins with its nationwide release.

The film is a remake of Mike Bamiloye's 1993 Christian classic Agbara Nla, also known in English as The Ultimate Power. The original premiered more than three decades ago and became a landmark of Nigerian Christian cinema, distributed primarily through home video at the time. The remake, three decades on, is charting its success through nationwide cinema admissions rather than the home-video route that carried the original to audiences — a shift in how the story now reaches viewers.

Produced under Mount Zion Film Productions in partnership with Circuits and Sozo Films, the remake retains the original's full storyline and brings back Bamiloye himself in his iconic role as Isawuru. His sons, Damilola and Joshua Bamiloye, direct the new production. The setup places the original's creator back on screen while passing direction to a second generation of the Bamiloye family, making the revival double as a generational handover at Mount Zion Film Productions.

The film's strongest regional performance tracked closely with its setting: Agbara Nla is a Southwest-set production, and outside Abuja and Kwara, Southwest regions occupied the top spots by percentage of admissions.

Nile Entertainment, the film's distributor, has promoted the preview run alongside additional claims, including the biggest faith-based opener of all time and the number one movie of the week, and has said it is working to add more cinema showtimes. How the film fares once the added showtimes and the official nationwide release are in place will be the next checkpoint in its run.

The film's early commercial strength adds to a broader pattern this year of Nollywood veterans returning to decades-old intellectual property for new theatrical releases. Industry observers point to Agbara Nla as an example of how holding on to original material can turn a low-budget 1990s production into a long-term commercial asset, decades after its first release.

Source: TechNext24