Show BusinessMirror ‘Barbie’ bonanza conti nues, ‘Oppen hei mer’ holds second spot

Press

By Jake Coyle | The Associated

AWEEK later, the “Barbenheimer” boom has not abated.

over evil once again take center stage as Gerardo Francisco restages his award-winning Ibong Adarna on August 19 and 20, 2023 at the Aliw Theater to conclude Ballet Manila’s 25th performance season, titled Of Hope and Homecoming.

“After a three-year hiatus, we’re so excited to let Ibong Adarna take flight once again and show Filipino audiences its captivating beauty, as well as bring to fore valuable Filipino traits such as love for family, forgiveness, kindness, and good over evil,” said Lisa Macuja elizalde, Ballet Manila’s founder, artistic director, and chief executive officer.

A classic 16th-century Filipino epic poem, Ibong Adarna centers around the mythical bird whose magical voice can heal illnesses. Upon hearing of its powers, three princes embark on a perilous journey, where they encounter different challenges to catch the elusive bird that can cure their ailing father. In the end, only the prince with the purest heart can catch the legendary Adarna bird.

Premiered in August 2017, Ballet Manila’s retelling of this Filipino classic, choreographed by Gerardo Francisco Jr., has already garnered many accolades over the years, including Best outstanding Production at the 2017 30th Aliw Awards. It has also won at the Philstage Gawad Buhay Awards, including outstanding Modern Dance Production, outstanding Choreography for Modern Dance, outstanding ensemble for Modern Dance, outstanding Music Composition, outstanding Male Lead and outstanding Female Lead.

With all the recognitions the show has earned, Francisco is all the more driven to live up to its standards to give audiences the best show.

“The pressure is there,” he said. “I need to stand by my standards, most especially to those who were able to watch the ballet during our world premiere. I need to exceed their expectations.”

The production was all set to go on a national tour in 2020 but was halted due to the pandemic. According to Macuja elizalde, the Ibong Adarna that will be staged this August will be the touring version where some dancers perform double or triple roles, and the production more streamlined.

Catch Ibong Adarna at Aliw Theater, Pasay City on August 19, 8:00 pm, and August 20, 5:00 pm.

For tickets, visit www.ticketworld.com.ph or call 8891 9999. To know more about Ballet Manila and its shows, visit www.balletmanila.com.ph.

Seven days after Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer conspired to set box office records, the two films held unusually strongly in theaters. Barbie took in a massive $93 million in its second weekend, according to studio estimates on Sunday. Oppenheimer stayed in second with a robust $46.2 million. Sales for the two movies dipped 43 percent and 44 percent, respectably—well shy of the usual week-two drops.

“Barbenheimer” has proven to be not a oneweekend phenomenon but an ongoing box-office bonanza. The two movies combined have already surpassed $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales. Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm comScore, call it “a touchstone moment for movies, moviegoers and movie theaters.”

“Having two movies from rival studios linked in this way and both boosting each other’s fortunes— both box-office wise and it terms of their profile—I don’t know if there’s a comp for this in the annals of box-office history,” said Dergarabedian. “There’s really no comparison for this.”

Following its year-best $162 million opening, the pink-infused pop sensation of Barbie saw remarkably sustained business through the week and into the weekend. The film outpaced Nolan’s The Dark Knight to have the best first 11 days in theaters of any Warner Bros. release ever.

Barbie has rapidly accumulated $351.4 million in US and Canadian theaters, a rate that will soon make it the biggest box-office hit of the summer. Every day it’s played, Barbie has made at least $20 million.

And the Barbie effect isn’t just in North America. The film made $122.2 million internationally over the weekend. Its global tally has reached $775 million. It’s the kind of business that astounds even veteran studio executives.

“That’s a crazy number,” said Jeff Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros. “There’s just a built-in audience that wants to be part of the zeitgeist of the moment. Wherever you go, people are wearing pink. Pink is taking over the world.”

Amid the frenzy, Barbie is already attracting a lot of repeat moviegoers. Goldstein estimates that 12 percent of sales are people going back with friends or family to see it again.

For a movie industry that has been trying to regain its pre-pandemic footing—and that now finds itself largely shuttered due to actors and screenwriters strikes—the sensations of Barbie and Oppenheimer have showed what’s possible when everything lines up just right. “Post-pandemic, there’s no ceiling and there’s no floor,” Goldstein said. “The movies that miss really miss big time, and the movies that work really work big time.”

Universal Pictures’ Oppenheimer, meanwhile, is performing more like a superhero movie than a threehour film about scientists talking. Nolan’s drama starring Cillian Murphy as atomic bomb physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer has accrued $174.1 million domestically thus far. With an additional $72.4 million in international cinemas, Oppenheimer has already surpassed $400 million globally. Showings in IMAX have typically been sold out. Oppenheimer has made $80 million worldwide on IMAX. The large-format exhibitor said on Sunday that it will extend the film’s run through Aug. 13.

The week’s top new release, Walt Disney Co.’s Haunted Mansion, an adaptation of the Disney theme park attraction, was easily overshadowed by the “Barbenheimer” blitz. The film, which cost about $150 million, debuted with $24 million domestically and $9 million in overseas sales . Haunted Mansion, directed by Justin Simien (Dear White People, Bad Hair) and starring an ensemble of LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito and Rosario Dawson, struggled to overcome mediocre reviews.

Talk to Me, the A24 supernatural horror film, fared better. It debuted with $10 million. The film, directed by Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael

Dexter Doria considers acting her ‘regular energizer’

my character in the series,” she shared.

The senior thespian is thankful that she was chosen to be part of the main cast of the series.

“Every day that I am on the set, I start with a prayer of thanksgiving. I am both lucky and blessed that ours is always a happy set, and my fellow actors love my company and accord me a special kind of respect, being the most senior in the cast. And I appreciate that the production team also takes very good care of me,” she added.

on screen, but my character. There should always be truth and your level of sincerity should be high for an actor to be authentic and competent.”

It was not until 2017 when Doria got the privilege of landing her first lead role in the festival movie Paki, directed by the now New York based Giancarlo Abrahan, about an old married woman who decides to call it quits with her husband.

Philippou and starring Sophie Wilde, was a midnight premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January and received terrific reviews from critics (95 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes). It was made for a modest $4.5 million.

While theaters being flush with moviegoers has been a huge boon to the film industry, it’s been tougher sledding for Tom Cruise, the so-called savior of the movies last summer with Top Gun: Maverick.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part I, which debuted the week before the arrival of “Barbenheimer,” grossed $10.7 million in its third weekend. The film starring Cruise and directed by Christopher McQuarrie, has grossed $139.2 million domestically and $309.3 million oveseas.

Instead, the sleeper hit Sound of Freedom has been the best performing non-“Barbenheimer” release in theaters. The Angel Studios’ release, which is counting crowdfunding pay-it-forward sales in its box office totals, made $12.4 million in its fourth weekend, bringing its haul thus far to nearly $150 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to comScore.

1. Barbie, $93 million

2. Opppenheimer, $46.2 million

3. Haunted Mansion, $24.2 million

4. Sound of Freedom, $12.4 million

5. Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, $10.7 million

6. Talk to Me, $10 million

7. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, $4 million

8. Elemental, $3.4 million

9. Insidious: The Red Door, $3.2 million

10. Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani, $1.6 million. n

This September, the series Abot Kamay na Pangarap will be celebrating its first anniversary, and Tyang Susan will continue to be the heart of the community of characters that the viewers follow and have learned to love and adore like their own. The great Dexter Doria will continue to showcase herself as a truthful and outstanding actor, with people loving her for who she is and what she generously gives out. n

A PATron buys a movie ticket underneath a marquee featuring the films Barbie and Oppenheimer at the Los Feliz Theatre, on July 28, 2023, in Los Angeles. AP

FOR many months now, veteran actress Dexter Doria has to pinch herself from time to time to make sure that she is not living in a fantasy world.

Wherever Doria goes nowadays, people recognize her, refer to her as Tyang Susan, and request for a photo opportunity with her, due to the soaring popularity of her well-loved character in the highrating afternoon TV series Abot Kamay na Pangarap.

The show’s success is considered phenomenal because it has consistently stayed on the top spot of the viewership ratings charts for many months now, beating the once unsurpassable 24 Oras (the flagship news program of GMA Network), and all the evening prime-time shows of all the local networks.

“For forty-seven years, I’ve never felt so well-loved by the general public until now. All the attention I get when I go out to the supermarket or when I dine out with my close circle of friends, all these feel new to me. I am just elated every time strangers would come up to me, hug me and call me Tyang Susan, the name of

Doria was discovered by the late filmmaker Emmanuel “Maning” Borlaza in 1976. “I brought my friend, then actress Nympha Bonifacio to the set of The College Girls, and when Maning saw me, he immediately instructed his staff to dress me up and sit on the make-up chair, because I would be replacing another actor who was late or absent,” the actress recalled. “I shot a sequence with Eddie Gutierrez, and, after that, I had to go back to the office because I was working with a company that dealt with automotive parts at that time. That one scene started my lifetime romance with acting.”

A team player who’s very pleasant to work with, Doria has become a favorite of many producers and actors. For decades, she has played many support character roles—good, bitchy, poor, wealthy, nasty, evil—and she enjoys every role she breathes life to.

“ As an actor, you are part not only of the narrative but of the entire creative process, because you are helping create your character and molding it to what the writers and the directors visualize your character to be,” she said. “For me, the gauge of a good actors is basic: when your audience do not see Dexter Doria

The movie won the top festival plum and made industry bigwigs take a longer look at what Doria is capable of as an actor. She was recognized by award-giving organizations for her felt performance, and it gave her more acting jobs in the following years. Four years later, Doria bagged her first URIAN trophy for the Jay Altarejos movie Memories of Forgetting, playing a mother on the brink of the devastating effects of Alzheimer’s.

“Recognition is always appreciated, but it is important that it has to be earned, and given freely, and by legitimate critics and organizations,” she said. “If you continue to get awards because of your influence, or worse, if you got the award because you, or someone spent for it, then shame on you. I’m sorry, but at the end of the day, when you look at yourself in the mirror even if you are holding your trophy, you will still be so empty because you know that you are pathetic and a fake.”

“I love being an actor. It has become the core of my being. It is my regular energizer,” Doria added. “I feel healthy and happy on the set. I like studying my lines and reading scripts. I like the banter with my coactors. It sharpens my memory, and every time I am acting, my soul is nourished.”