The sequel to Monica went live two weeks ago. The surprise wasn’t the sequel’s numbers. It was what happened to the original.

Monica went up in March. By the end of April, it was doing what most viral Nollywood films do at the two-month mark: cooling off. About 70,000 views a day. Past its peak.

Then Monica 2 dropped on May 2.

By May 5, Monica 1 was getting 666,000 views in a single day. By May 6, it hit 867,000. Nobody re-promoted the original. No new trailer dropped. Viewers just came back. In the ten days after the sequel launched, Monica 1 picked up nearly three million extra views.

Sequels work this way when they land. Fans of Part 1 rewatched. New viewers of Part 2 went looking for the original. Both films climbed at once.

Monica 2 is on a tear.

Day one: 5.8 million views. Day two: 2.8 million. By the end of week one, the film had passed 16 million. Today, two weeks in, it sits at 19.8 million views. It’s still pulling close to half a million a day.

For perspective: Monica 1 needed two months to reach where Monica 2 got in two weeks.

Can it catch Love in Every Word?

Omoni Oboli’s 2025 hit is the number to beat. The film sits at 33 million views, more than a year after release, and it’s still adding roughly 13,000 every day. The long tail isn’t shrinking.

Monica 2 is fast. But it’s also slowing. Fewer new viewers each day, less social buzz, the usual cool-down pattern. Best guess at where it lands: somewhere between 28 and 32 million. Close to LIEW. Maybe not all the way there.

Unless Monica 3 happens.

Two weeks taught us this much: every new Monica brings the old ones back. If a third lands before LIEW’s long tail finally fades, the Monica franchise overtakes the Omoni Oboli one outright.