MANILA, Philippines — Matteo Guidicelli has been announced as the new Pedro Penduko for an upcoming movie with a new director, Jason Paul Laxamana.

The formal announcement was made at the Viva office in Ortigas on Tuesday, October 22.

Matteo said that he was honored to take on the role of Pedro Penduko, who has been played by the likes of Efren Reyes Sr, Ramon Zamora, Janno Gibbs in the movies, and Matt Evans on television.

“We’ve been eager, excited to start with Pedro Penduko,” Matteo said. “With direk Sonny [Sison], we’ve been training for two months now, yung mga fight scenes namin, physical conditioning.”

According to Matteo, Sonny, who also did the choreography fight scenes for the movies Maria and Buybust gave him tips based on his experience as a stunt director in the US. Sonny said that Matteo has been doing well in their trainings.

Viva also gave a sneak peek of Matteo in character. The photo was shot by Artu Nepomuceno with David Milan and Peps Silvestre as his glam team.

“A lot of cultural references especially with the Philippine marital arts tradition. They do a lot of stick fighting Visayan style. Also as you can see, Pedro Penduko has tatoos on his chest. I think we’ll be featuring also yung mga lumang style of tatoos, yung talagang (old style tatoos, that’s really) solid Filipino-Visayan tatoos also. So it will be all about the culture and tradition,” Matteo said.

Jason, who has directed romantic films suh as The Third Party, 100 Tula Para kay Stella, and the recent Gerald Anderson-Julia Barretto movie Between Maybes, said that the story line for his Pedro Penduko will be different for the movie that was supposed to star James Reid. Jason is both director and writer of the project.

“May part ng story na (There is a part of the story where) Pedro will go to another world. That another world is like para siyang ancient Visayas,” Jason told Rappler after the press conference. “So all the characters there they’ll wear about 15th, 16th century Visayan clothes, ornaments, and yung leader nila doon isang (their leader there is a) datu, they all have these baybaylans. Meron din tayong (we also have a ) setting na Land of the Spirits according to Cebuano… mas Visayan.”

“I want them to appear as we visited the Visayan old times.”

According to the film synopsis, Pedro Penduko lived the life of a petty criminal after being orphaned and abandoned. He then embarks on a journey to his mom’s homeland called Bag-ompala —a pocket dimension inhabited by ancient Filipinos who preserve their traditional ways with a penchant for the supernatural. He then discovers his heritage and uses the skills he acquired to fight for the oppressed.

James Reid was supposed to play the role but bowed out after a spinal injury.

Penduko is scheduled for a 2020 release. —Rappler.com