Whitney Houston performs during the World Music Awards at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, as a tribute to music mogul Clive Davis, who received the Outstanding Contribution to the Music Industry Award, Sept. 15, 2004. Image: Reuters/Ethan Miller
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “The Bodyguard,” the 1992 movie that launched the acting career of the late Whitney Houston and featured her most famous song, is getting a reboot.
Hollywood movie studio Warner Bros. said on Wednesday that a reimagining of the romantic thriller is in development with a script penned by American playwright Matthew Lopez.
Lopez is the playwright behind the award-winning “The Inheritance,” a two-part drama about gay men in New York a generation after the 1980s AIDS epidemic, that opened on Broadway in 2019.
No details of casting, plot or a potential release date were given but Warner Bros. said that Lawrence Kasdan, the writer and producer of the 1992 film, will co-produce the new version.
Houston made her movie debut in “The Bodyguard,” playing a singer who is protected from an unknown stalker by a former secret service agent played by Kevin Costner.
Despite being panned by critics at the time, it went on to become the second biggest film at the worldwide box office in 1992, and Houston’s rendition of Dolly Parton’s ballad “I Will Always Love You” became a classic.
Houston drowned in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub in 2012 after a long history of drug addiction. She was 48.
“The Bodyguard” would join a string of Hollywood movies to get a reboot. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper starred in a 2018 remake of “A Star is Born”; a new versions of sci-fi classic “Dune”; and musical “West Side Story” are all due for release later this year. JB
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