"Enteng ng Ina Mo", "Panday 2", "Segunda Mano" lead the pack in MMFF movie earnings

The seven official entries vying in this year’s Metro Manila Film Festival are now in the thick of the fight for box-office supremacy. According to the tweet of Kris Aquino on Monday, leading the pack as based on first day total gross is the Vic Sotto-Ai Ai delas Alas starrer "Enteng ng Ina Mo" with P38.5M, "Panday 2" with P20M, "Segunda Mano" with P18.25 M, "My Househusband" with P17.33 M, "SSR13" with P15.9 M, "Yesterday Today Tomorrow" with P10.1 M and "Asiong Salonga" with P3 M.

We watched "Enteng ng Ina Mo" on Monday at the Gateway Cinema in Cubao and it was a full house, confirming reports that the Vic-Ai Ai is indeed the current leader in the race for earnings. We had to line up for an orderly entry to cinema. We noticed that most of those lining up are kids with parents. No wonder then that the movie is hit. They have captured the children’s fancy.

Well, Vic and Ai Ai have solid following individually as proven by their track record as perennial box-office champions in the MMFF and this year is no exception. With them teaming up together, it was a surefire box-office hit. But Panday 2 is a worthy challenger as well. It has topnotch special effects and swashbuckling action scenes.

As of this writing, we’ve watched only 3 – Asiong Salonga, Panday 2 and Enteng ng Ina Mo. We plan to watch three more.

It normally happens that the box-office results gets altered a bit after the awards night as the "tail enders in the box-office" get a boost if they win awards. Well sometimes, award-winners do pick up steam and manage to catch up with the frontrunners. The word of mouth is an effective way to entice others to watch and if the movie wins an award, then that is a bonus.

We don’t know if the MMFF committee would decide to use box-office supremacy as one of the criteria in choosing the best picture. This became rather tumultuous in recent years after a movie which won second best picture honors went on to become the eventual top moneymaker. If the MMFF committee decides to use the box-office result in choosing the best picture, then it is safe to say that the best picture winners would be Enteng ng Ina Mo, Panday 2 and Segunda Mano.

But if the jurors would stick to the dictum that the films should be judged on merit, not only on the box-office result, then the other movies who are not earning that much would have a fair chance in winning the best picture plum.

It would also be interesting to find out who would win as best actress – Judy Ann Santos for "My Househusband Ikaw Na," Kris Aquino for "Segunda Mano" or Maricel Soriano for "Yesterday Today Tomorrow," and Ai Ai de las Alas for "Enteng ng Ina Mo."

In the best actor race, it should be a fight among Jeorge Estregan for "Asiong Salonga," Ryan Agoncillio for "My Househusband, Ikaw Na," Vic Sotto for "Enteng ng Ina Mo" and Sen. Bong Revilla for "Panday 2."

For best supporting actress, Eugene Domingo could be it for "My Househusband Ikaw Na" and either John Regala, Baron Geisler or Phillip Salvador for "Asiong Salonga" or Phillip Salvador for "Panday 2."