Is GMA Giving Up its Tagalized Hollywood Movies?

IN RECENT weeks, GMA 7 has been a bit different in its Sunday movie blocks.

Since the start of June, GMA has not been showing Hollywood movies dubbed in Tagalog either on GMA Blockbusters in the afternoon or on the Sunday Night Box Office time slot, which is at about 10:30 pm after the award-winning news magazine show Kapuso Mo Jessica Soho.

Instead, Asian movies dubbed in Tagalog have been shown, including Miracle in Cell No. 7 (a Korean movie that used the voice of Gabby Eigenmann), Ip Man with Donnie Yen and Train to Busan (featuring the voice of Dennis Trillo, see photo).

Even the Lovi Poe movie Guni Guni was also shown on SNBO recently.

If you ask me, this is a good move by GMA because Asian movies aren't in English and dubbing them in Tagalog is the best way for them to be appreciated by the viewers unlike English movies where Filipinos understand the English language and the dubbing makes a Hollywood movie too awkward to watch on TV.

GMA also recently started airing Manny Pacquiao's drama show Stories for the Soul and news reporter Atom Araullo's documentaries on the last Sunday of the month to compete with the Star Cinema movies ABS-CBN shows on Sunday afternoons. Both Stories for the Soul and Atom Araullo Specials were aired on the night time slot before but they were transferred to the afternoon so that more viewers can watch them.

As we blogged earlier, ABS-CBN started showing restored movies every first Sunday of the month on the Sunday's Best time slot. The next restored movie ABS will show this July is Milan starring Piolo Pascual and Claudine Barretto which was filmed almost entirely in Italy.

The problem I see, though, is that GMA has a limited supply of Tagalog and Asian movies. Most of these films are under the ABS-CBN library. GMA Films has not been active in producing new Filipino movies lately due to the Kapuso Network's limited budget. The GMA News documentaries are more often relegated to its sister station News TV Channel 11.

Also ABS-CBN has a wide array of specials to choose from. It has tapped blocktimers to produce some of its specials like Viva Entertaimment (for Miss Manila and concerts), Airtime Marketing (for the Star Awards) and Carousel Productions (for the Miss Earth), aside from its own concerts under Star Records, documentaries under ABS-CBN News and the entertainment division for the Bb. Pilipinas.

Even TV5 has stopped airing these Tagalized Hollywood movies since it's now a sports channel but the MVP-owned network still airs US TV shows dubbed in Tagalog like Walking Dead which airs on Thursday nights.

It remains to be seen if GMA will totally stop airing these dubbed English movies on Sundays. But at least, the Kapuso Network is making one step in the right direction.