A Whitney Houston biopic is resurfacing after one was aired through Lifetime Movie Network in 2015. At that time the late great diva was played by Ya Ya Dacosta.
“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” will chronicle the life of the late singer who died in 2012 at age 48. The biopic is set to be written by Anthony McCarten, who is also the mastermind behind the Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which earned four Academy Awards.
The Whitney Houston biopic will carefully ensure details delegated by Whitney Houston’s Estate, music producer Clive Davis and Primary Wave Music, the partners said Wednesday.
Due to this the movie has promise to be “frank about the price that super-stardom exacted,” according to the media release, which explained that the project “came together after Davis first approached McCarten with the idea of a biopic, in April last year.”
“From all my personal and professional experience with Whitney from her late teenage years to her tragic premature death, I know the full Whitney Houston story has not yet been told,” Davis said in a statement. He said McCarten’s script will finally reveal the “whole Whitney whose vocal genius deeply affected the world while she fiercely battled the demons that were to be her undoing.”
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Whitney Houston along with Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G. and T.Rex most recently made the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s 2020 inductees. The Icon sold more than 200 million records worldwide during her 25-year career and won six Grammys, 16 Billboard Music Awards and two Emmys prior to her death in 2012.
McCarten, who has gotten Oscar nominations for his scripts for “The Theory of Everything,” “The Darkest Hour” and “The Two Popes,” said in a statement that he’s grateful to be working closely with the people who knew Houston best.
“We are incredibly lucky to have the support and input of many of the key people who knew Whitney the best and who were there at the time, in the making of this film,” McCarten said. “I am working closely with all of them, to authentically tell the extraordinary story of a peerless talent, taken from us too soon.
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“Recreating for the big screen those unforgettable performances, those beloved songs, and that incredible journey, will be an enormous responsibility, undertaking, privilege and delight for myself and for our entire team,” he added.
The announcement also said that Stella Meghie is in “advanced talks” to direct. Meghie most recently directed “The Photograph” with “Insecure” creator and writer Issa Rae and “Atlanta” star LaKeith Stanfield.
The project will be backed independently and does not currently have a studio.
