Male stars rule MMFF

Looks like 2024 MMFF has an extra-strong box office appeal judging solely from the lead star elements of the first five movies already accepted as entries based on submitted scripts and main stars.

No Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes. No Kathryn Bernardo and Alden Richards. But there’s Vic Sotto with Piolo Pascual in The Kingdom; Vice Ganda with Maris Racal, Anthony Jennings, and Eugene Domingo in And the Breadwinner is...; Dennis Trillo and Sofia Pablo in Green Bones; and Enrique Gil and Jane de Leon in Strange Frequencies: Haunted Hospital.

Only Himala The Musical seems to have the least commercial appeal in terms of casting.

It is top billed by actors who are primarily known as singers, like as Aicelle Santos, Bituin Escalante, David Ezra, and Victor Robinson. Pepe Diokno will helm the musical from the script of Ricky Lee and Diokno himself. He is the same Diokno who directed last year’s entry, Gomburza, which did well at the tills.

But why do the producers of the musical film, Kapitol Films and Uxs, Inc., think a movie musical will attract crowds during the Christmas season?

Well, if you’re not aware yet, stage musicals have been the crowd drawers this year in the entertainment circuit while Pinoy movies are the anchovies, including, reportedly, the recent That Kind of Love of the vaunted “BarDa” screen love team of Barbie Forteza and David Licauco.

The original Pinoy musical One More Chance of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) and the one of Full House Production with a supposedly comical tongue-twister title Burugundoy bla-bla-bla lorded it over the first six months of the year in the entertainment arena. PETA is, in fact, giving One More Chance another run of about two months, September-October, this year.

Repertory Philippines’ I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, directed by Menchu Lauchengco, was well received just some weeks ago.

The producers of the musical Rent, staged about a month ago, didn’t let out a single word about losing money on the umpteenth staging of Rent in the country since about a decade or two ago.

For all we know, those who spend so much on tickets for theater musicals will swarm Himala The Musical for an admission ticket of from only P500 or P600 starting the last week of December (there are no talks going around that the 25 December — Christmas Day opening of the MMFF will be moved to another day for reasons sensible or silly).

This year’s MMFF has been decided by the event’s executive committee to have 10 entries. The next five will be chosen based on actual movie submitted to the selection committee headed by actor Boots Anson-Francisco.

Deadline for the submission of finished films as proposed entries will be on 30 September at 5 p.m. The chosen five will be announced on 15 October.

There are yarns spinning that one of the five might be a Vilma Santos film. The Star for All Seasons is likely to be home now from a US vacation and must have quickly finalized a deal with one of two production companies that had a serious offer to her before she flew to the US. One of the offers will be helmed by the award-winning filmmaker Chito Roño who directed her in the acclaimed Dekada ‘70 in 2002.

Another supposed offer stars Santos with Judy Ann Santos.

Four of the five directors of the accepted entries are not newcomers to the MMFF and other film festivals in the country. Some were the biggest winners in the box office, some in the awards night and in the reviews and critiques. The Vice Ganda entry will be helmed by Jun Lana, the first ever Vic Sotto-Piolo Pascual team up will be handled by Mike Tuviera. Zig Dulay heads the creation of Greenbones topbilled by Trillo and Pablo.

Kerwin Go is the new name as an MMFF entry director. He’s in charge of the horror thriller Strange Frequencies: Haunted Hospital starring Gil and de Leon (of ABS-CBN’s Darna series fame). We googled and learned that he has been director of photography of a string of films, but had his launch as feature film director in Mina-Anud which was Cinemalaya 2019’s closing film.

It was tropical crime comedy based on true events: the washing up of three tons of smuggled cocaine on the shores of a peaceful seaside community in Eastern Samar. Some impoverished local surfers got hold of the contraband and risked their lives selling them to tourists even at the time the police already knew that hundreds of well-sealed bags of cocained washed up there. They were either authentic cops or disguised syndicate criminals who want bags and bags cocaine for profitable but deadly livelihood.

“Mina-Anud was an engaging film. Go might craft an even more engaging one in this year’s MMFF.

Last year’s MMFF reportedly earned P1.069 billion. Can MMFF match it, if not surpass it.