estate-approved whitney houston biopic lands director, clive davis producin

April 22, 2020

EW has confirmed The Photographand The Weekend helmer Stella Meghie is in talks to direct a big-screen adaptation of Houston's life story — currently titled I Wanna Dance With Somebody — with Clive Davis (the record executive who discovered Houston) producing and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hour, The Theory of Everything) penning the script for Houston's estate and music publishing company Primary Wave.

Deadline broke the news Wednesday, also confirming that Pat Houston, Whitney's sister-in-law, will produce on behalf of the estate, along with Davis, McCarten, Primary Wave's Larry Mestel, and Denis O'Sullivan. In a statement to the publication, the film's producers indicated they would celebrate Houston's life without shying away from the circumstances surrounding her tragic death, and were interested in having McCarten board the project due to the sensitivity with which he approached past biopics like the Freddie Mercury-focused Bohemian Rhapsody and the Winston Churchill biographical drama Darkest Hour.

According to the statement, the film will be a “joyous, emotional and heart-breaking celebration of the life and music of the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time, tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom. While being very frank about the price that super-stardom exacted, it will be both the rich and complex saga of the search for the perfect marriage between song and singer and audience, and at the same time the moving tale of a simple Jersey girl trying to find her way back home."

Davis, who brought Houston to prominence throughout her early career, added: "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. I am so glad that Anthony McCarten has committed to a no holds barred, musically rich screenplay that finally reveals 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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