As another year drew to a close, the buzzword in the Philippine movie industry was not “superhero” or “blockbuster sequel”, but “Wattpad”. Wattpad, the online community which allows users to upload their own novels, stories, essays, fan fiction and other original content, was the source of three surprise movie hits and several teen romance television dramas.
First out of the gate was Diary of the Ugly (Diary ng Panget), based on a teen romance novel by “Denny R”. Produced by Viva Films and directed by Andoy Ranay, Diary of the Ugly grossed US$2.68 million, making it the seventh highest-grossing Filipino production of the year outside the year-ending Metro Manila Film Festival. Though savaged by critics, the movie was popular enough to merit another Wattpad adaptation headlined by its breakout stars, Nadine Lustre and James Reid. Talk Back and You’re Dead, a co-production of Viva Films and Skylight, a subsidiary of industry giant Star Cinema, was the eighth highest-earning local movie of 2014, grossing US$1.78 million.
Star Cinema fielded two of its top young stars, Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla, in She’s Dating the Gangster, a Wattpad-sourced romantic comedy directed by hitmaker Cathy Garcia-Molina. It was the third biggest local movie of the year, with US$5.83 million in ticket sales.
Clearly the producers were onto something. Wattpad not only provides content for movie adaptations, it also lets users know which stories are the most popular among its readers, thus eliminating much of the guesswork about what the audience wants. At least seven more Wattpad movies are currently in production from Star and Viva.
The romantic comedy continued to be the most successful genre in Philippine cinema. At the 40th Metro Manila Film Festival, an annual two-week event during which only selected local productions are screened in cinemas, sequels The Amazing Praybeyt Benjamin by Wenn Deramas, Feng Shui 2 by Chito Roño, My Little Bossing (My Big Bossing 2) by Marlon Rivera et al, and Kubot: The Aswang Chronicles (sequel to Tiktik) by Erik Matti did well, as expected. The four films had earned a combined US$4.13 million by the third day of the festival. The big surprise was the independently-produced romantic comedy English Only, Please, which observers have called a game-changer in the industry.
On paper English Only, Please seemed doomed to bring up the rear at the festival box-office. It was not a sequel to a popular film franchise, it was the first feature helmed by cinematographer Dan Villegas, and its stars Derek Ramsay and Jennylyn Mercado, while well-known, had not carried a movie before. The screenplay by Antoinette Jadaone, herself a director (Six Degrees of Separation from Lilia Cuntapay), employed the tested tropes of romantic comedies but managed some interesting reversals.
The movie struck a chord with the upmarket audience that is more likely to watch Hollywood productions. At the festival awards night, the movie took home awards for best direction, screenplay, editing, and lead performances. English Only, Please, ran in cinemas for over a month. What is potentially game-changing about the movie is that it is a relatively low-budget independent movie without the advertising and promotion resources of its competitors. Whether it does change the game will depend on the performance of its sequel, which is reportedly in production.
The game itself remains the same. Fifteen of the Top 20 releases in the Philippines in 2014 were Hollywood product: superheroes (Spider-Man, Captain America, X-Men, the Guardians of the Galaxy), sequels (Transformers, Planet of the Apes) and Young Adult melodramas (The Fault in Our Stars). Among local releases, the top grosser was Star Cinema’s romantic drama Starting Over Again, directed by Olivia Lamasan and starring two of its biggest marquee names, Toni Gonzaga and Piolo Pascual. It earned US$9.09 million. Next was Star Cinema’s romantic comedy Bride for Rent, featuring the popular romantic duo Kim Chu and Xian Lim, and directed by Mae Cruz. Other notable earners were the horror-comedy Da Possessed, directed by Joyce Bernal and starring Vhong Navarro (US$2.80 million), and Maria Leonora Teresa (US$1.62 million), a horror-suspense drama by Wenn Deramas, director of the biggest comedies in Filipino box-office history.
Star Cinema’s erstwhile king of rom-coms, John Lloyd Cruz, attempted a change of pace, playing a mentally challenged man accused of rape in the Chito Roño drama, The Trial. The movie made a respectable US$1.26 million. For comparison, his last rom-com, It Takes a Man and a Woman, released in 2013, grossed US$9.10 million.
Mainstream hits stuck with the traditional formulas, with the notable exception of The Gifted. Writer-director Chris Martinez, one of a few filmmakers to be successful on the mainstream and indie scene, made a movie that could be appreciated as a straight rom-com, and yet be interpreted as a critique of the rom-com formula. Featuring strong performances by Anne Curtis, Sam Milby and Cristine Reyes, The Gifted had the nerve to pull the rug out from under the audience’s feet and question viewer expectations about how movies should go. Audiences didn’t seem to mind – it took US$1.76 million, making it the ninth biggest Filipino film of the year.
The Cinemalaya and Cinema One Originals film festivals continued to be the best showcases for independent filmmaking. Cinemalaya’s 10th edition saw the return of filmmaker Carlitos Siguion-Reyna after a hiatus of several years. His film Where I Am King (Hari ng Tondo), which follows a rich businessman on the verge of losing everything, is a rare comedy in his filmography.
Note: USD1=44.15 Philippine Pesos
Jessica Zafra