Coming from a stagnant first half of the year, local cinema sees invigoration with the arrival of Star Cinema’s Un/Happy For You.
Local cinema saw incredible box office numbers, last year, with Dingdong Dantes and Marian Rivera’s Rewind, becoming the biggest local commercial film of the year and grossing more than ₱915 million at the global box office. But that was more than six months ago. No other local release this year, has ever hit ₱100 million at the box office.
Not until JoshLia and Star Cinema’s Un/Happy For You, which deserves the recognition of being a new box office hero. The said reunion film of the ex-romantic couple is first in line, among Star Cinema’s potential mega-blockbusters this year, including Kim Chiu and Paulo Avelino’s, My Love Will Make You Disappear, and Vice Ganda’s And The Bread Winner is… .
With an opening day gross of ₱20.5 million, Un/Happy For You has already set a record for the biggest opening day of the year. Now at ₱104 million on its 4th day, the film has also already the biggest weekend of the year. The film, grossing ₱39 million on Saturday, alone, holds the year’s biggest single-day gross. It is also now the biggest non-MMFF Star Cinema film, this year.
Four days into showing and it has accomplished so much already, what more in the coming days? Star Cinema is simply proving it remains the box office juggernaut, it has been for many years. Similarly, JoshLia proved its magic lingers, its box office power still ahead their contemporaries.
Un/Happy For You‘s incredible success is seen as an great sign for what’s coming to local cinema, providing hope for local film makers, as articulated by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) Chairman, Director Jose Javier Reyes.
“Itong kay Julia saka kay Joshua, it gives us hope, because it’s outside a festival arena. OK, it gives us hope. So, sabik sila. At isa pa, kung iisipin mo, ano, bakit nagkaroon ng Rewind, naka-PHP1B, hindi ba?” he said in a press conference.
