Once the poster child for the fact that over night successes are often decades in the making, Thai martial arts star Tony Jaa now appears destined to go down as a case study in the fleeting nature of fame.
The initial Ong Bak hit in 2004, grossing roughly two and a half million dollars at the Thai box office – a big number at the time – while pulling roughly another seventeen million in international theatrical play.
Suddenly Jaa was the biggest name in the international fight world and the entire Thai action film industry was reinvigorated.
The news is even worse for Ong Bak 3. With the year end lists now out we can see how the film fared in Thailand. Not only did Ong Bak 3 fail to top the charts, it couldn’t even crack the top five domestically produced titles, landing instead in seventh position overall with a mere 1.3 million take. That’s less than half of the business Ong Bak 2 did at the Thai box office despite being a direct continuation of the story, a sure sign that the local audiences lost interest.
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