Love team forever

ENRIQUE Gil and Liza Soberano’s love team underscores importance given by producers on romantic team-ups.

New TV-film love teams like Daniel Padilla and Kathryn Bernardo and Enrique Gil and Liza Soberano underscore the great importance that producers place on romantic team-ups on the big and small screens, because their popularity with viewers can be regularly mined for hits for many years.

This was the same practical logic behind past fave love teams like Nida Blanca and Nestor de Villa, Nora Aunor and Tirso Cruz III, Jolina Magdangal and Marvin Agustin, Judy Ann Santos and Piolo Pascual and Dawn Zulueta and Richard Gomez.

Instructively, efforts are now being made to come up with nostalgic comeback vehicles for Jolina-Marvin, Judy Ann-Piolo and Dawn-Richard—proof that producers believe that, with the right comeback vehicle, their team-ups still have the allure to lure their fans back to patronize their new TV or film starrers again.

Many failed attempts

However, creating a hit love team with “legs” is a difficult process, and many failed attempts litter the path leading up to the boffo box office. It takes much more than just finding a pretty face and a handsome hunk, putting them together, coming up with a strong launching vehicle for their new tandem, spending a lot on build-up promotions, and teasingly intimating that they feel “that way” for each other “in real life.”

EFFORTS are being made for a Piolo Pascual-Judy Ann comeback vehicle.

Take the current teen love team to beat, Daniel Padilla and Kathryn Bernardo: If memory serves, Kathryn once starred in a drama series that paired her with two up-and-coming teen

actors—but, in midstream, the stellar configuration was altered to “insert” Daniel into the equation, because it was felt by the TV network’s savvy producers that he would make a more interesting and promising match for Kathryn.

True enough, we’ve forgotten who her original TV partners were, but the “Kathniel” team has gone on to reap success not just on TV, but in the movies as well.

What exactly is the unique element that makes their team-up more popular than most other screen tandems today? We figure that it’s the “spicy” contrast between her “sweet” projection and his signature sense of “bad boy” excitement and danger!

Greater edge

In time, if their tandem continues to be popular up to young adulthood, we can expect their signature “mix” to further “modulate” and allow for greater edge on her part, to keep viewers not just interested, but also fascinated!

By means of savvy tweaking like this, a few love teams have remained popular for more than a decade—and, with a lot of help from their career handlers, “Kathniel” could do it, too.

FANS would like to see Richard Gomez and Dawn Zulueta act up a storm.

As for “comebacking” love teams like Jolina-Marvin and Dawn-Richard, they have their own reasons for being seen again: The first tandem was more lighthearted than dramatic, but now that they’re older, their reunion project should show how much they’ve deepened as performers. Marvin, in particular, has gained a lot of thespic “traction” from his having played challenging roles in some inspiring films by the late, great Marilou Diaz-Abaya.

Strong come-on

As for Dawn-Richard, the fact that they “still” look good in their late ’40s is a strong come-on, but fans would also like to see them act up a storm, to show that they too have come a long way as thespians. Will they be up to the comeback task at hand?