Maybe "Teacher" could slip "Muay Jin" some loose change

In an ideal world, every Thai film would earn as much but, sadly, some of them are skunks. You just don’t hear about them as much because, you know, no one wants to embarrass the people responsible. They’ve suffered enough. Well, okay, we’ll mention one. While “Diary” was racking up Bt100 million without breaking a sweat, receipts for “Muay Jin Din Kong Lok” topped out at just Bt29,000. That’s right: Bt29,000 after one week on 15 screens. Your gardener earns more than that.

VIP Entertainment made the film, but obviously cinema buffs denied it any sort of VIP treatment. It might be the least profitable movie in Thai history, drawing just half the take of “Saman Chan”, the previous definition for turkey. 

Let’s get out our calculators and see what happened here. If “Muay Jin Din Kong Lok” made Bt29,000 and the average ticket price is about Bt100, that means 200 people went to see it. Those 200 people weren’t exactly vocal about it on the social media, because most of the country never even heard of the film. But its abject failure sure got people buzzing. English-language website Coconuts Bangkok called it “the movie everyone is talking about but no one wants to see”. 

Our in-house movie guy managed to see the promotional trailer at least. “The insane trailer,” he calls it. Scan this page with your iSnap app to see for yourself. Or you could wait to see if one of those millions of new digital TV channels wants to give “Muay Jin” a second shot at fame.

 

 

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Poor little Ploy

 

Shaking the champagne out of her hair, Chermarn “Ploy” Boonyasak was among the beaming, soggy cast and crew cheering the success of “Diary” yesterday. Her leading role in the film makes her the new “Bt100-million actress”. That’s got to look good on a CV that also includes the just-finished TV series “Samee Ti Tra” (“Registered Husband”), which was another hit.

Cue the gossip, then, or rather the snarky grumbling after word spread that Ploy had jacked up her public-appearance fee to Bt180,000 per 90 minutes. Unofficially, that’s the highest fee in the business, the “business” being the commercial side of acting. 

Grumbling? Don’t make Ploy laugh. “I adjusted the rate even before the TV series started!” she says, but people are jumping to conclusions because of the news about the movie. And anyway, she says, some of the male stars get paid more to show up for a retail gig. Plus, she’s never had a complaint from anyone who’s hired her for a promotional event. “Appearing at an event doesn’t mean I just stand there. I work according to the assignment. I always cooperate with my employer.”

It’s a whacking great paycheque considering it’s only moonlighting, Ploy says, but she never gets her priorities mixed up. “My career is still acting and the events are just extra jobs. I think there’s a mutual understanding of that with anyone who hires me. They’re pleased to pay my rate and vice versa.”