Angela Bassett isn’t the first person we might expect to see directing a TV movie. Nonetheless, her Whitney Houston biopic seems to really be getting off the ground, with Yaya DaCosta in the lead role. This week, Lifetime premiered the first picture of DaCosta glammed out like Whitney Houston, and the similarities are pretty striking.
Whitney Houston is set to follow the height of Whitney Houston’s singing fame during the time of her well-chronicled and tumultuous relationship with singer Bobby Brown. The couple were married for fifteen years, in a relationship that saw them both exhibit increasingly bizarre behaviors in public. Drug use was also a prominent portion of their relationship before the couple’s eventual divorce in 2007.
Whitney Houston was found dead of an overdose in a hotel bathroom just a few short years later, in 2012. Despite her troubled romance and the tragic nature of her death, Houston left behind a legacy that includes such hits as “I Will Always Love You,” “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” From the looks of the first photograph from Bassett’s new movie, all spotlights will be on DaCosta as she plays a shining star, rather than a glimmering one.
According to EW, the biopic has just started filming, but producers were able to get DaCosta into a room to recreate the cover of Houston’s iconic 1987 album, in which big hair and bold lips reign supreme.
The former America’s Next Top Model contestant is very sharp-looking in the recent photograph, but she lacks some of the joy de vivre Whitney Houston effortlessly exhibited in photographs. Still, her smile is nearly a dead ringer, and she seems capable of pulling off Houston in the role. Whitney Houston should bring plenty of eyeballs over to Lifetime when it is released. Fans of the singer still abound, and her romance with Bobby Brown is legendary. The movie is not expected to debut until 2015, with DaCosta playing Houston, Arlen Escarpeta playing Bobby Brown and Yolanda Ross playing the singer’s longtime friend Robyn Crawford.
When it does see the air, it's likely to be consumed by quite a few people. Houston's fans are as passionate as ever, and given how larger than life and double take crazy her relationship with Brown often was, it should be a very entertaining few hours. We’ll let you know as soon as Lifetime announces an official premiere date. Until then, put on your favorite Whitney Houston track and remember the good old days when everyone thought she would be the biggest star in the world for decades.
