Sony’s TriStar Pictures Picks Up Whitney Houston Biopic Directed By Stella Meghie
Deadline is reporting that Sony’s TriStar Pictures has won the rights for I Wanna Dance With Somebody, the feature film on the life and music of iconic songstress Whitney Houston. The studio has already staked out a Thanksgiving, 2022 release date for the film. It was previously announced back in April that The Whitney Houston Estate, Primary Wave and Grammy-winning music producer and Houston’s mentor Clive Davis were all aboard. Stella Meghie is directing. She helmed The Photograph, starring Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield and her credits include Jean and the Jones, The Weekend, and Everything, Everything.
Scripting and producing is Anthony McCarten, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter who wrote the biographical films The Two Popes, Darkest Hour, Bohemian Rhapsody, and The Theory Of Everything.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody will be produced by Pat Houston on behalf of the Houston Estate, Davis, Larry Mestel on behalf of Primary Wave Music, Denis O’Sullivan (Bohemian Rhapsody) and Jeff Kalligheri (Submergence), who are also financing via Compelling Pictures. McCarten is producing through his Muse of Fire Productions banner. Primary Wave Music is a partner of the Whitney Houston estate. The film will benefit from the use of Houston’s many hit songs.
Houston is the most awarded female music artist of all time, selling more than 200 million records worldwide. With her first studio album in 1985 and for more than 25 years that followed, her music became the soundtrack for multiple generations. Her hit songs included Saving All My Love for You, How Will I Know, Greatest Love of All, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Didn’t We Almost Have it All, So Emotional, Where Do Broken Hearts Go, I’m Your Baby Tonight and Million Dollar Bill, among many others. The six songs Houston recorded for her 1992 screen turn with Kevin Costner propelled The Bodyguard soundtrack to win multiple Grammy Awards including Album of the Year, and a Record of the Year award for the Dolly Parton-penned single I Will Always Love You. She later did soundtracks for other motion pictures, including Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher’s Wife, the latter which went on to become the best-selling gospel album in history.
There has been a few films centering on the life of Houston, in 2015 Angela Basset directed Yaya DaCosta in Whitney for Lifetime. Nick Broomfield directed the 2017 documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me for Showtime. Kevin Macdonald directed the 2018 documentary Whitney that premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was released internationally in theaters that summer. Gabrielle Dennis played Houston in BET’s The Bobby Brown Story in 2018 and Demetria McKinney played the role in the TV One film Bobbi Kristina.