Iza’s Japan win ignored by ABS-CBN

Opening today in cinemas nationwide is “Northern Lights: A Journey to Love” starring Piolo Pascual, Yen Santos and child actor Raikko Mateo.

This is the comeback movie of Piolo under Regal Entertainment and the award-winning actor is hoping for box-office success. At the movie’s press conference, he admitted feeling a little nervous but he would like to think positive that the movie directed by Dondon Santos will be accepted by the viewing public.

Since Piolo is the biggest star in the film, the burden of making “Northern Lights” a box-office hit rests on his shoulders. Piolo’s drawing power will be tested anew.

It is understandable that Yen is also nervous since this is her debut movie. But she is lucky to have Piolo as her leading man. While Yen has yet to prove her box-office mettle, Piolo’s magic as an actor might just pull her through and make “Northern Lights” a big success.

If “Northern Lights” is a good movie, it can generate word-of-mouth publicity and make it easier to persuade people to watch it. They can also use social media to create noise that “Northern Lights” is worth watching and definitely worth spending their hard-earned money on.

We really wish that people will come to watch a good film. There is no use exerting effort to make a good film if audiences won’t come to the theatre and watch it.

It is sad to note that majority of the movie-going public are partial to watching Hollywood flicks even if there are many well-crafted and well-acted Filipino movies shown in cinemas. Sad to say, some of these movies sometimes don’t even last for a week in theatres because of lack of audience.

We are hoping that if people get wind that a truly excellent Pinoy movie is showing, they would come out and watch it.

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It is hard if an actor is not a home-grown talent of a network. There is a tendency for the said talent to be ignored even if he or she has achieved something noteworthy.

Take the case of Iza Calzado. She won a best performer award in an international film festival in Osaka, Japan. It was the first international award for Iza, but the Kapamilya network chose to ignore her victory.

She was not even given a congratulatory plug by the network. Well, ABS-CBN believes that Iza’s victory in that festival is no big deal to them.

I guess their belief is that the awards won by Coco Martin and his show “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano” from schools are far more important since they make VTRs to congratulate the actor and the people behind the primetime series.

But they chose to ignore Iza’s win in Japan. Where is justice?

Iza first made waves as an actress in GMA-7 where she started her career. When she moved to ABS-CBN, we hoped that her career will become better and she will be properly taken care of by way of good projects.

Yes, she has had good projects, but these come few and far between. There was even a promise made to her that she will be featured once a month in “Maalaala Mo Kaya,” but it did not materialize.

Well, even if ABS-CBN seems to be ignoring Iza’s capability as an actress, the fact remains she is a very good actress, something we cannot say of the “favored” actresses of the network, just because they are their home-grown talents.

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Since Angel Locsin could no longer do the film version of “Darna” for health reasons, there is a guessing game as to who will bag the coveted role of the iconic Pinay komiks character.

Often mentioned by netizens as possible choices to wear the Darna costume are Sarah Geronimo, Nadine Lustre, Liza Soberano, and even Miss Universe 2015 Pia Wurztbach.

In an interview, Sarah said she can’t be Darna because Darna can’t be wearing a jumpsuit.

While Pia seems to be interested, she said that ABS-CBN has other plans for her and being Darna is not part of it.

There are those who are saying that Nadine would be perfect for Darna, but she is not an ABS-CBN talent and this might work against her. But most of the comments on social media say they would like Liza to play the heroine.

If we remember right, director Erik Matti (who was picked by Star Cinema to direct Darna) said the perfect choice for Darna is Angel and no one else. If we are going to take Direk Erik’s words as gospel truth, it would be better to shelve the Darna project since Angel will no longer be able to do it.

Whatever our opinion and the choices we make as to who deserves to fly as the Darna of this generation, nothing will come out of it if Star Cinema decides with finality that it is no longer producing a film version of the Mars Ravelo creation.