Evolution of L_UBVRI for SN 1998bw and for the set of single WR star explosion models (with and without rotation; see Tables 1 and 2 for details). Models r4e4, r6e4, r6ze4, and r6e4BH come close to match the luminosity around maximum but overestimate the rise time and/or underestimate the luminosity at late times. Less energetic and more massive models with a lower ⁵⁶Ni mass (models r0e2 and r0e4) are in better agreement at late times, but they fail to match the phase around maximum (see Sect. 3.1 for discussion and details on how we calculate L_UBVRI).