Four Sisters Before the Wedding writer Vanessa Valdez said the idea for making a prequel to her successful 2013 film Four Sisters and a Wedding actually came from network management.

“The management gave us a directive na what if we tell a story before the story of the last movie. Management saw the potential for doing a prequel and isa ring vehicle ito for us to be able to launch new actors, to be able to give them a new opportunity to shine. And we were very happy na ito yung mga napili naming artista. Napili sila kasi nag-audition silang lahat. And in-approve ng management yung casting nila,” she shared.

Having to come up with a storyline that takes place a decade before the original film was Vanessa’s first hurdle. “Actually challenging siya ng iconic nung pelikula and then challenging much later na nung dumating pa itong pandemic so may mga adjustments na kailangan gawin sa kuwento. Pero siguro dahil mahal mo lang yung characters, hahanapin mo ulit yung pagmamahal na yun, kung paano mo ba silang puwedeng mabuhay in different ways so I think that was more the opportunity for me to write something that I really love, to write characters that I love, and to share them again with the world in a different way,” she explained.

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Aside from the prequel, the Kapamilya writer was also considering making a sequel as well.

“Ibang versions ito nung mga characters na nakita sa 2013. Kasi minsan ko na rin naman naisip na what if magkaroon ng sequel at mag-uwian sila ulit? Pero maganda rin naman ikuwento yung parte nila na hindi pa natin Nikkita. Kumbaga the first movie is just one chapter of the book in their lives. This is another chapter that we’re telling. Hindi naman na-ko-cover ng pelikula ang buong buhay ng isang tao, ng isang pamilya. So ibang chapter pa ito and I’m hoping because I think we made a really good movie, I think we made a movie that will touch a lot of people, that this actually opens up more opportunities for the story to continue in a different way, not necessarily a sequel but maybe in another way and I’m hoping nga na it opens up a lot of possibilities. It opens up the possibility rin for our younger generations of stars to rise up,” she explained.

With the new cast led by a younger generation of actors and actresses, Vanessa said the film is a good vehicle to launch new talent. “Kasi feeling ko importante yun kung sino ba yung next batch ng artistas, sino ba yung mga next batch of movie stars that we want to watch and may feeling ko na the young people here, itong mga batang artista natin, nagpapalapakan na tayo kasi magaling sila. Na-capture nila yung essence ng mga characters habang pinapanuod ko sila. Kakaiba pero you feel like you’re still looking at the same set if people. And I hope when people watch it, I hope when they go into the movie, not expecting it to be the same as the first, a different experience but still they’ll get that heartwarming feeling, they’ll get that satisfaction from watching these people who already feel like family to us,” she said.

Even though the film opens the same month as the MMFF, Vanessa said they never considered joining the annual film festival. “To my knowledge, wala namang napag-usapang ganun. Marami pa kasi kaming post-prod work na we had to finish and parang actual production work kaya may feeling ako na hindi din kami umabot sa deadline ng MMFF. That’s why I think it was ever in consideration because we still had to shoot a lot more before we could meet the deadline,” she added.

Aside from Four Sisters and a Wedding, Vanessa also penned films like A Love Story, The Mistress, and The Unmarried Wife in 2016 and serves as script consultant for numerous Star Cinema projects.

Four Sisters Before The Wedding streams worldwide beginning December 11 via KTX.ph (ktx.ph), iWantTFC (iwanttfc.com), TFC IPTV, Cignal PPV (my.cignal.tv), and Sky Cable pay-per-view (mysky.com.ph). This is distributed by CineXpress.