The cast of “ConMombetinm” —MAVX PIRODUCTIONS

“Give us a chance.” That’s actor Patrick Garcia’s plea to local moviegoers as he urges them to return to watching movies in cinemas.

The success stories of the 2023 Metro Manila Film Festival (MMFF) in December and the recent Joshua Garcia-Julia Barretto (JoshLia) starrer “Un/Happy for You” have encouraged a lot of producers to push for theatrical releases of some of their films rather than simply selling them to streaming platforms.

According to organizers of the 49th MMFF, the combined gross receipts of all 10 entries reached P1 billion. Meanwhile, producer Star Cinema said the JoshLia film has a worldwide gross of P390 million as of September.

“The success of a local film is always good. It gives you hope that moviegoers are starting to get interested in watching inside movie theaters again,” Patrick said.

“We hope this continues because I see a lot of good-quality local films that are being produced but are not seen by a lot of our local audiences. If they would only watch, then they will see how Philippine cinema and our storytelling process have greatly evolved,” he told Inquirer Entertainment in a recent interview.

Kaye Abad, Patrick’s coactor in the soon-to-be released comedy film “ConMom,” also shared an interesting observation. She said that since the release of “Kita Kita” in 2017, featuring Empoy Marquez and Alessandra de Rossi, “successful” films have become more story-based and do not necessarily feature big-name actors.

“I noticed that Pinoys had gotten so used to retelling ‘traditional’ stories. For a while then, we got the usual fare because they were all that producers wanted to make to ensure that they had hits,” Kaye said.

“It was during the pandemic when intelligent films emerged. Viewers have started to evolve, too. New but intelligent filmmakers also emerged—those whose vision for filmmaking is very much different,” she pointed out.

“Before ‘Kita Kita’ (in 2017), people watched movies because they featured popular actors. With it, Pinoy audiences were introduced to new actors, who are equally talented. We now patronize these movies not because of the stars, but because of the story. Films have since become story-based,” she declared.

While it’s a good sign that Filipino films are doing well at the box office once again, Paolo Contis said this should also serve as a challenge to filmmakers and producers to make sure they come up with quality films. “’Di lang basta-basta ang gawa. It’s also our responsibility to make sure of this because Pinoy audiences don’t watch local films that often anymore. If they do but only get disappointed, then they might stop watching at the cinemas again, and the good films that follow will lose the audiences they deserve. It’s our responsibility to the industry to make sure that the projects we release are all of good quality. Madadamay ang iba sa isang pangit,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, Empoy said he is praying to hear more good news in terms of box-office performance in the coming months. “A lot of us lost jobs during the pandemic. I hope we can all recover soon. Since then, we have become a lot more skilled at making movies, while audiences have learned to be more discerning. In fact, there are a lot of Filipino movies that have made it to Netflix and Prime Video, just like ‘Through Night and Day’ (starring Paolo and Alessandra),” Empoy pointed out.

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“ConMom,” which also features Kit Thompson, is produced by Mavx Production Inc. INQ

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