Funke Akindele Returns Solo With ‘The Four’ for December 2026

After a multi-year run that has reshaped Nigeria’s box office ceiling, Funke Akindele is returning to cinemas on December 11, 2026, with ‘The Four: No One Fights Alone’, a new ensemble drama led by Akindele, Bisola Aiyeola, Chioma Chukwuka, and Waje Iruobe, with a notable shift in her filmmaking approach.

The FilmOne Entertainment-distributed title is Akindele’s first feature in recent years that she directs alone, following a stretch of co-directed projects that powered her record-breaking run from ‘Battle on Buka Street’ through ‘A Tribe Called Judah’ and ‘Behind The Scenes’. That run not only delivered consecutive commercial hits but also helped push Nollywood toward its current box office expansion phase, where 2026 revenues are already tracking toward a full post-2020 reset.

With ‘The Four’, Akindele appears to be recalibrating both authorship and scale, returning to a more singular creative control at a time when her films have become central to the industry’s theatrical economy.

Positioned as a character-driven drama rooted in themes of motherhood, resilience, and collective survival, the film is set across a fictional Odu community and an urban backdrop, and it follows Esosa and three women bound by loyalty, navigating a high-stakes fight for the future of a young man they love.

In a brief statement, Akindele described the project as an exploration of “relationships that shape us, challenge us and stay with us”, suggesting a more introspective tonal direction.

With the cast, Akindele is blending trusted collaborators with high-recognition faces. Returning Nollywood mainstays include Timini Egbuson, Lateef Adedimeji, and Wumi Toriola, alongside industry veterans like Richard Mofe-Damijo, Ronke Oshodi Oke and Antar Laniyan. The film also features…