JANE DE LEON says she is sad about ABS-CBN’s decision to shelve their “Darna” project but she adds that she perfectly understands the situation.
The ABS-CBN official statement says: “We are committed to following production guidelines under the new normal and the safety of the actors and production team is a top priority. However, because the movie requires complex logistics, crowd shots, and fight scenes that involve physical contact, it will be difficult to give justice to the superhero film while strictly adhering to the guidelines.”
In addition to the production’s shooting problems, it added that there’s also the fact that with the ongoing corona lockdown, it’s highly doubtful if moviegoers would go back to watching movies in actual theaters.
We heard that since they started cooking up the Darna project with Angel Locsin as the title-roler, who later backed out due to health reasons and was later replaced by Liza Soberano who also backed out, with Erik Matti still directing it then, with Jerrold Tarog taking over, Star Cinema has already spent some P140 million for the pre-production. Maliwanag na lugi na sila roon.
In reply, Jane wrote in her own social media account: “I’m deeply saddened by the postponement of the Darna project. However, safety comes first as always. Thank you so much for the support & understanding. Let’s pray for everyone’s safety. God Bless!”
Jane has been undergoing training for the action scenes in the movie for sometime now.
It’s good that she was being paid a regular salary while under training, so it’s not a totally unproductive project for her as she still earned something.
And let’s face it, being chosen as Darna made her more familiar to the public and it can now open other doors for her so she can do projects even for other companies.
Director Jerrold Tarog (who replaced Erik Matti after he resigned) has revealed that they’ve started shooting the project with Jane in January this year and have already logged 15 shooting days so far, about 40 minutes running time of rough cut. All these footage will now also go into waste. How sad.
Tarog has now returned to TBA Studios which produced his historical dramas, “Heneral Luna” and “Goyo, Batang Heneral”.
He aims to start shooting by next year the third edition in this trilogy of historical films, the biopic of Pres. Manuel Quezon. Let’s hope the scourge of the corona pandemic will really be over by then.
