How The Bodyguard Remake Will Change Whitney Houston’s Character

Tony Award winner Matthew Lopez offers new details on The Bodyguard remake, including the changes being made to the Whitney Houston character. Written by Star Wars vet Lawrence Kasdan and helmed by Mick Jackson, the original film centered on a former Secret Service agent as he is hired by the manager for a famous actress and singer to work as her bodyguard as she begins receiving death threats from an unknown stalker. Houston starred in the film alongside Kevin Costner, Gary Kemp, Bill Cobbs and Ralph Waite.

Hitting theaters in 1992, The Bodyguard was a box office smash upon release, becoming the second-highest grossing film of the year with $411 million worldwide. Critical reception was far lower, however, as it was panned for the lack of chemistry between its stars and over-melodramatic screenplay, receiving seven Razzie nominations and winning for Worst Picture, Worst Actor and Worst Actress. The film’s music would fare better with critics and audiences alike, becoming the best-selling soundtrack album with more than 45 million copies sold worldwide, two of the singles nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and Houston winning three Grammy Awards for Album of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for “I Will Always Love You.”

While chatting with Variety for his historic award-winning play The Inheritance, Lopez offered new details for The Bodyguard remake. Lopez revealed his one stipulation to WB when he was approached for the project was making Houston’s character into an on-the-rise Latina performer rather than an established star as in the original film. See what Lopez said below:

“It’s so much fun. When Warner Bros. approached me about the idea, I quickly said I would but I wanted the protagonist to be Latina. They agreed to that. There’s been a lot of speculation about what I’d bring to the remake and some people were assuming that there’d be a gay storyline to it. Instead of focusing on an established star like the one Whitney Houston played, this is about a young Latina performer who has just become famous. It’s about how her life has changed because she is an overnight sensation. In the 21st century, that means she’s in immediate need of protection. It was important to me to use this opportunity to get Latin faces up on that screen and to get their stories told in a big way.”

While a remake changing its source material is usually an element fans cry fowl over, Lopez’s creative decisions for The Bodyguard are sound ones for the property. Given films like The High Note and A Star Is Born continue to shine a light on established musicians and their stories, the shift to the viral nature of modern society marks a more original approach to the plot and one with a timely value to it as the Internet continues to prove a toxic place for many creatives. Additionally, Lopez’s push for a Latina protagonist marks a good effort for diversity on screen.

The announcement of a remake to The Bodyguard came as a surprise to many given the generally poor reception of the original film. Additionally, with the film serving as a source for parodies throughout the years, including as recently as the Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L. Jackson action-comedy The Hitman’s Bodyguard and its sequel, it certainly begged the question of a need for such a project. Despite these concerns, Lopez’s new details certainly point towards the remake being in the right hands and establishing potential to clear the bar set by its predecessor.

Source: Variety

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Grant Hermanns
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Grant Hermanns is a News Writer, Interviewer and Hiring Manager for Screen Rant, having joined the team in early 2021. Way back in 2015 while still in his college days, Grant got his start in the entertainment journalism industry with creator-friendly site Moviepilot until it shuttered nearly three years later. From there he joined the staff at ComingSoon.net and was its Associate Editor prior to coming over to Screen Rant.

To say he’s a lover of film and television would be an understatement and when he’s not mass consuming either you can find him exploring the world of Dungeons & Dragons with friends or slowly making his way through his gaming backlog.

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