Arnel Pineda assures biopic will push through

29 Jan – Arnel Pineda recently assured that his planned biopic will be pushing through despite the pandemic.

As reported on ABS-CBN News, the Journey frontman, who previously revealed that a movie about him will be helmed by filmmaker Jon M. Chu, (who directed "Crazy Rich Asians") and produced by Warner Bros, stated that Chu and writer Scott Silver will be coming to the Philippines to audition actors.

Pineda himself, who has been stuck in Manila since returning home from the US prior to the pandemic, enthused that he couldn't wait to show them the places where he grew up and where everything happened before he became part of Journey in 2007.

"What's interesting about my story is that I've survived two coup attempts here in the Philippines before I went to Hong Kong for 10 years. I don't know if [Silver] plans to tell what happened to me in Hong Kong, but I had 10 years there. He might focus on my love story with my wife now," he said.

Pineda also has his ideas about how the movie should end, and that it should be the time he held his first show as a Journey member in Chile.

""I've been implying it to him that we should end everything in Chile. And I remember when my wife decided to join me on tour in 2011. We were playing to a 30,000 crowd that night. I was telling my wife, 'Remember Hard Rock Cafe when there were only three tables? Now it's 30,000 people.' It was just unbelievable. It doesn't get old to me. It's still so surreal and bizarre," he said.

Pineda was discovered by Journey co-founder Neal Schon on YouTube, after his band The Zoo shared performances in which they covered songs by the American rock band among many others. In December 2007, Pineda was announced as the new lead singer of Journey following the departure of Jeff Scott Soto.

(Photo Source: Arnel Pineda Instagram)