Surprise, shock and awe greeted the news that GTH, Thailand's most commercially successful movie studio, will close shop at the end of the year.
Fans wonder why the company would suddenly make that call after having engineered so many blockbusters of the past 11 years, and lament the end of an era -- after all, this is the creative outfit behind massive hits such as Pee Mak (2013, 1 billion baht at the box office), I Fine Thank You Love You (2014, 335 million baht), ATM Errak Error (2012, 150 million baht), Laddaland (2011, 120 million baht), Bangkok Traffic Love Story (2009, 147 million baht) and many other ghost tales, romantic stories and feel-good dramas that dominated the market in the last decade.
In fact, no one should lose sleep over this. The directors and producers of GTH are not going to stop making films and begin selling amulets for a living. They will continue making movies, thank heavens, and the break-up announced last week was more of a business decision than a creative one.
It is management restructuring, partnership shake-up, whatever you call it in corporate jargon, and by next month we should see clearer how the new reincarnation, minus some former executives, will look. It's pretty much confirmed that the "G" and "H" of the former GTH will stick together -- G is GMM and H is Hub Ho Hin -- while the "T", or Tai Entertainment, will leave the picture. All film projects currently under development at GTH will proceed, though it's not clear under which party.
Still, GTH is a brand, one of the most recognisable and successful brands in the Thai entertainment industry. Its contribution to Thai cinema is huge, both in cultural and commercial dimensions, and in the event of the brand's termination, it's worth looking back and reflecting on some of GTH's biggest influences on the landscape of the Thai movie scene. Here goes.
AUDIENCE TRUST
By producing hit after hit (there were also flops, but not many), GTH earned audience trust, and in effect helped put Thai cinema in the consciousness of society. When a GTH film opened, it often eclipsed even Hollywood titles concurrently released that weekend -- and that gave Thai film in general a presence in the crowded market.
The renaissance of Thai cinema is often put at 1997, when home-grown movies began to reclaim its former glory at the box office. GTH arrived officially in 2004 with the horror film Shutter, a major hit here and abroad (Fan Chan, or My Girl, was sometimes credited as its first effort in 2003), and the studio's formula of quality production and its ability to predict popular taste quickly put it at the forefront. GTH kept pulling the crowds to see its films, and again, that helped strengthen the foundation of local films. Loyalty is what every brand tries to achieve, and GTH spent a few years pulling that off. By around 2010, some people would just go to "any GTH film", regardless of its content, quality or the name of the director attached to it.
MIDDLE-CLASS MOVIES
GTH films aren't always critics' darlings. The studio is best-known for its happy movies, a string of feel-good stories that see the world as a flat and fun place mostly populated by good-humoured people, where hard problems are solved too easily (see Teachers' Diary, where Thailand's poor education system is fixed by the romance between two teachers) and sweetened by a dash of college nostalgia (Seasons Change, teen love in a music conservatory, or Dear Dakanda, teen love in an art school).
Cynical critics didn't buy that -- too bad for us! -- but the "GTH sensibility" connected deeply with a large swathe of Thai society in the mid-2000s as the growing middle class sought reassurance in their new-found wealth and bright future through the movies' mix of mild fantasy and worry-free optimism. Two assumptions here. The studio was a natural evolution of Thai sentiment in times of heavy urbanisation and economic stability (relatively); or maybe GTH just had a prescience so sharp that it was able to read the middle-class feel-goodism and respond to it by offering a dose of anti-anxiety pills.
This is why GTH is a force to be reckoned with (and will continue to be in their rebirth). It's an economic barometer as well as a cultural modifier, and its strength shows how those two are inseparably linked.
OFF THE BEATEN TRACK
GTH is best-known for its horror hits and happy films, but to be fair, the studio has "experimented" with something more diverse while giving opportunities for directors to be more "personal". In 2005 it made Mahalai Muang Rae (The Tin Mine), an adaptation of a beloved novel about a young man's stint in a southern mining town -- something very non-commercial, and the film didn't make much money. In 2007, the studio released a documentary film -- that was very brave in a movie market that had no place for non-fiction -- called Final Score, which followed high school students as they prepare for an entrance exam. It wasn't a hit, but it was well-received and convinced small documentary filmmakers that their works had a chance on the big screen.
In 2008, GTH released Kod (Handle Me With Care), an odd drama about a three-armed man who travels to Bangkok to have his extra limb chopped off, and the film became the studio's lowest-earning film, making only 10 million baht (the director, Kongdej Jaturanrasmee, would stop working for studios and went indie, where he became quite successful). In 2010, the studio made a monster film Kradueb, in which a cool-aid pad becomes a giant blob. But the comedic monster film didn't strike a chord and the film was a flop.
Just three months ago, GTH surprised (and even enraged) some fans with Freelance, a feel-good/feel-bad film about an insecure man and his dermatologist -- the film wasn't optimistic enough for some people who believed the studio should deliver nothing else but rainbow and blue sky. Still, Freelance defied the backlash and made a substantial 90 million baht.
PACKAGING A FILM
Above all, GTH is a studio that's very adept in combining creativity with marketing. It knows how to package a film. The best example is the history-making Pee Mak, which earned an unthinkable 1 billion baht (it may be slightly exaggerated, but never mind). Dusting off an old tale that everyone was bored with, the studio repackaged it with superstars (Mario Maurer and Davika Hoorne), some offbeat humour, and a dash of romance. Bless it with some hype and choose the timing wisely, the audience dug it big time.
Although Pee Mak was a record-shattering jackpot, in general GTH puts as much effort into grooming the "image" of every new film as much as its content -- how the audience will perceive it, down to how to name a film and how the poster should look.
The whopping box office figures of Pee Mak and I Fine Thank You Love You also proved that a serious hit is possible only when a film appeals to as many demographic groups as possible -- teenagers, adults, men, women, office workers, factory workers, urban, rural, etc.
There's much to learn from them. There's also much to be careful of when the studio's success has set a standard for taste and quality -- just like how the mighty Hollywood defines the meaning of "entertainment" and "good films" for global audience, when in fact diversity, courage and artistic choice should be celebrated in film. GTH will close its door in a month, and something new will happen after that, hopefully something as exciting if not more.
Fan Chan (My Girl).
Laddaland.
I Fine Thank You Love You.
