This Remake Announcement to Whitney Houston’s The Bodyguard Might Be the Biggest ”Do Not Want” I’ve Seen in a While

Today, Variety revealed that we’re getting a remake to The Bodyguard, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen an announcement get ratioed so quickly.

Matthew López (The Inheritance) has been hired to write what Variety is calling a “reimagining” of the 1992 original which starred Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner. In the original, Houston played Rachel Marron, a singing/acting sensation who started to receive death threats from a stalker. Costner played Frank Farmer, a former Secret Service agent who was working as a bodyguard. Farmer is hired as Marron’s bodyguard, and the rest, as they say, is history.

There is, of course, plenty of room to create a story about a celebrity being stalked who is in need of protection, and with the advancements in technology compared to 1992, it’d probably be perfectly unsettling.

However.

This is Whitney Houston.

Those are some TALL shoes to fill and I wouldn’t wish that on ANY Black woman. Anyone they try and get for this, especially if they’re singing the songs that Whitney sung, is gonna be put under a microscope as soon as they get announced.

No one deserves that.

Just make a different movie about a celebrity dealing with a stalker.

Let’s be honest, when we think about The Bodyguard we think of two things: Whitney Houston and the soundtrack. Without those two things, we don’t have The Bodyguard at all.

While I’m normally not the type to scream NO from the mountaintops when a remake is announced, my immediate reaction about this particular idea is, well, NO, followed by WHY?!

I just feel like this kind of remake is only gonna sentence whoever is part of it to a lifetime of scrutiny. Is there anyone who would even try and tackle Houston’s range between “Queen of the Night” and “I Will Always Love You” because I feel like no one would dare.

No matter how many times (insert lead actress) inevitably comes out to say “I’m not trying to replace Whitney Houston” everyone will see it as “you’re trying to replace her” because this project is called The Bodyguard and has been labeled as a reimagining of the original.

According to Variety, some “delirious speculation” has been being made since 2011.

Lawrence Kasdan of Kasdan Pictures, and Dan Lin and Jonathan Eirich of Rideback are producing the new film. Rideback’s Nick Reynolds will executive produce. Kasdan was the writer-producer of the original. Lin has been attached to the property since 2011, which has seen delirious speculation over the potential lead cast for years. Combos from Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson to Channing Tatum and Cardi B have been floated. No cast has been set for López’s script at this stage.

I’m gonna go and listen to the soundtrack on repeat until this is over.

(Image: Warner Bros. Pictures)

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Briana Lawrence

Briana (she/her - bisexual) is trying her best to cosplay as a responsible adult. Her writing tends to focus on the importance of representation, whether it’s through her multiple book series or the pieces she writes. After de-transforming from her magical girl state, she indulges in an ever-growing pile of manga, marathons too much anime, and dedicates an embarrassing amount of time to her Animal Crossing pumpkin patch (it's Halloween forever, deal with it Nook)

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