Erik Matti’s ‘On The Job’ spinoff series gets a release date on HBO Go

The neo-noir crime saga from Erik Matti continues, eight years later.

As revealed by WarnerMedia on Wednesday, On The Job, an original six-part hour-long series based on the acclaimed film of the same name by Erik Matti is set to exclusively debut on HBO in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in September, and then later on the region’s HBO network.

Select episodes from the upcoming series are scheduled to screen in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival in September. Titled “On The Job: The Missing 8,” it is the only Asian film in a field of 21 at the 78th edition of the film festival.

Meanwhile, the first two episodes of the series previously premiered as a film at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Director’s Fortnight SACD Prize. It went on to win several accolades around the world, including a Jury Prize and a Best Actor nod for Joel Torre at that year’s Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in Bucheon, South Korea.

Despite this, viewers will still get to see novelty once the series airs this September, as Matti took to Instagram to say that he added never-before-seen footages from the original cut. 

“We brought back several plotlines that I’ve written into the original script that slowed down the main plot when it was just a movie,” Matti’s caption read. “Now that it’s a series we can now explore as many plotlines as we can.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/CR5-2WWHZMS/

I was in awe rediscovering the material that we all shot back then and see the characters live on again with their lives showing a little more of their characters,” Matti added.

Inspired by true events, “On The Job” zeroes in on crime syndicates that pardon prison inmates specifically to carry out political assassinations for people in power. The series also shine the spotlight on prevalent issues such as the illicit spread of fake news and how the truth twists and bends at will in today’s age of information.

Watch WarnerMedia’s intense trailer of “On The Job” below:

Matti had also planned to direct a sequel to the 2013 film which had a supposed release in 2019. However, it was sidelined as he had to focus on shooting his horror film, Kuwaresma.

Nonetheless, the “Honor Thy Father” filmmaker is going full steam ahead with turning the “OTJ” tale into a full-blown franchise. Future plans may see the body of work branch out to explore other character arcs, plotlines, and expansions, just as Matti has envisioned.

Produced by Reality Entertainment and Globe Studios, the six-part limited series is in both English and Filipino and stars Joel Torre, Gerald Anderson, Dennis Trillo, Joey Marquez, Piolo Pascual, John Arcilla, and Christopher De Leon. It is written by Michiko Yamamoto and Matti and executive produced by Ronald “Dondon” Monteverde, Matti, Joe Caliro, and Quark Henares.

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