Manila hosts Fast & Furious 6 red carpet premiere
MANILA, Philippines — No “personal” questions, but only those pertaining to the movie “Fast and Furious 6,” could be asked from actors Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans and Gina Carano, during a media gathering in Makati City scheduled on Thursday, Inquirer Entertainment learned.
The cast members will sit down with the local print media from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday at the Fairmont Hotel. A meet-and-greet with the fans at the Glorietta Activity Center on Palm Drive follows immediately after.
Diesel arrived in Manila on Tuesday morning via a private plane by A. Soriano Air Corp. The other three actors, who boarded a different flight, arrived shortly after.
A special screening of the Hollywood action-thriller franchise was held at the Greenbelt Mall in Makati on Tuesday night. Present were producer Neal H. Moritz, director Justin Lin, executives from the film’s distributor United International Pictures (UIP), as well as select foreign and local journalists.
A red carpet premiere will be held at the SM MOA on Wednesday night. That same day, a press conference for TV journalists will take place at the Fairmont Hotel, and a car show at SM’s Music Hall. This pre-event program, organized by Ladder Events Productions, will feature a mini-concert and a drifting exhibition.
“This is an important event for the country. It means more and more foreign productions are starting to recognize the Philippines as a legitimate market. They now have confidence in what Filipinos can do,” said Optical Media Board chair Ronnie Ricketts.
In fact, another successful Hollywood franchise, “Iron Man 3,” was released here this month, a week ahead of its premiere in the United States, Ricketts reported. “It was shown in other Asian countries two or three days later,” he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Tuesday. “This happened because foreign producers trust us now. They see that we’re doing our best to curb piracy here.”
Ricketts was referring to the recent Special 301 Review of the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), which removed the Philippines from its “watch list” and downgraded to its “special mention” list, along with Hong Kong, Malaysia and Taiwan.
As someone who dabbles in action movies himself, Ricketts claimed to be a big fan of Diesel. “I watched almost all of his films. He’s into hard action. He seems to be a good guy, too.” He said Filipino actors can learn a lot from watching foreign action stars.
The OMB chief also said this would encourage producers to revive the action genre here. “While we don’t always have enough funds, we would feel inspired. It started with ‘Bourne Legacy’ that had some of its most important action scenes filmed here,” he pointed out. “The country is slowly being known in terms of movie production. I’m hopeful that this will open doors for us to have joint productions with foreign outfits in the future.”
The three-day promotional event, organized by Solar Entertainment Corp., is part of the movie’s world tour that includes stops in cities like London, Beijing, Seoul and Cabo San Lucas. The film will be shown in theaters nationwide starting May 24.
Diesel reprises his role as the lead character Dom Toretto in this popular movie franchise that brought underground street racing to international spotlight in 2001.
In the sixth installment, Diesel is joined by Paul Walker, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Sung Kang, John Ortiz, Gal Gadot and Elsa Pataky. Rodriguez plays Diesel’s girlfriend Letty, whom he earlier thought to be dead. Evans portrays the role of the villain Owen Shaw.
Originally posted: May 14, 2013 | 5:54 pm
