A romantic movie that teams up aga Muhlach, 54, with Julia Barretto, 26. a film that puts together Kapuso alden Richards and viva hot star Heaven Peralejo — with Richards directing the film himself for the first time.

A third movie stars together, also for the first time, real-life couple Sarah Geronimo and Matteo Guidicelli. 

All three are to be produced by Viva Films this 2024 to firmly reestablish itself in the minds of moviegoers as a company that makes big films for theater screening. Not just for streaming on digital platform, but for screening in moviehouses all over the country. 

For almost three years — from 2021 to the third quarter of 2023 — Viva Films was practically drowned to near-oblivion by its sister movie-streaming company, Vivamax, which is mostly into sex-heavy viewing fare. (Viva Films did produce for theater release in August 2022 some films about the Marcos family, directed by the upstart Darryl Yap whose career was born in Vivamax.)

Blame it all on the Covid-19 pandemic which prompted the closure of cineplexes starting 2021.  But that led to the launching of Vivamax, which by the first quarter of 2022 had amassed 2.5 million subscribers. By the first month of 2023, it had signed up more than 6 million patrons worldwide (since there are Pinoys all over the globe!). 

Wholesome movies

Vivamax, according to its top executive Vincent del Rosario, has always carried in its catalog all the wholesome movies of Viva Films starring the likes of Sharon Cuneta and Robin Padilla, Sarah Geronimo and John Lloyd Cruz, Bela Padilla and JC Santos. But just the same, the streaming company got famous (or infamous?) for its sex-heavy films that do not need approval from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.