BY NEIL RAMOS
“Darna” is not pushing through – at least for now.
The film, in production for several years now, has been cancelled by ABS-CBN.
Only days after talk of the film’s demise started circulating on social media, ABS-CBN, in a statement Friday, announced it has indeed decided to postpone work on the film indefinitely “after careful deliberation on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on movie production and cinemas.”
It added, “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.”
They gave the bottom line: “We are still in the midst of an unprecedented health crisis that makes it also difficult to assess when cinemas will recover and see audiences returning.”
The project was first announced in 2014 with Angel Locsin in the lead and Erik Matti as director.
Locsin had to deal with a back injury along the way, eventually leading to her dropping out of the project in 2015.
She was replaced by Liza Soberano who was announced as the new “Darna” in 2017.
A year later, Matti backed out of the project citing artistic differences with ABS-CBN. He was quickly replaced by Jerrold Tarog.
In April 2019, ABS-CBN released a press statement announcing Soberano had left the project due to a finger injury.
Later in July that year, little known Jane de Leon was named her successor.
The rights to “Darna” remain with ABS-CBN.
