'It's going to happen': Arnel Pineda assures biopic is pushing through

January 31 ------ MANILA – “It’s going to happen.” This was the update given by Journey frontman Arnel Pineda of his planned biopic to be helmed by filmmaker Jon M. Chu and produced by Warner Bros. “I think they’re gonna start. Some people from Warner will start coming here. I think maybe with ['Crazy Rich Asians' director] Jon Chu and ['Joker' and 'The Fighter' screenwriter] Scott Silver. They might come here to audition actors and actresses that will take part in my biopic,” he told Rolling Stone in an interview.

Pineda said he cannot wait to show them where he grew up, where he was born and where everything happened before he became part of Journey. He also revealed that he’s spoken to Silver many times about this project but he is not sure what part of his life the acclaimed screenwriter would want to focus on. “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 he 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.

Nonetheless, Pineda said he’s been telling Silver that he wants to take the viewers to Chile where he did his first show as a Journey frontman for the film’s finale. “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.

In a previous interview with ABS-CBN News, Pineda, who was discovered by Journey co-founder Neal Schon on YouTube, said he would want the film to cover his family’s struggles when he was a child, his “hand-to-mouth existence” as a singer, his “demons” that were drugs and alcohol, and how he surpassed those and focus on his dreams. This biopic would not be the first time Pineda’s story will be told in a feature-length film. In 2012, the documentary “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey” unraveled the fairy tale that was Pineda’s overnight transition from performing at bars to sold-out stadiums.

Source: news.abs-cbn.com/entertainment