It took over 20 years to get The Bodyguard onto the screen the first time around (you can read more about that here – it was originally meant to star Steve McQueen and Diana Ross), but Warner Bros. are hoping it’ll quicker to do a remake, as Deadline reports the studio wants to do just that, and has hired Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer to write the screenplay.
While many will decry this latest attempt by Hollywood not to have to think about orginality, you can see Warner’s logic. The Bodyguard is nearly 20 years old, but with $411 million in the box office grosses, it’s still one of their biggest hits, and also spawned one of the best selling albums of all time. With a whole new generation having grown up without seeing much of Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner, the studio obviously smells cash.
The plot will be chaged a little bit, so that rather than a former Secret Service agent getting hired to protect a singing diva who’s receiving death threats, it’ll a be an Iraq war veteran who gets the job protecting the star as his first gig after leaving the Army. He discovers that the world of Twitter, Google Maps and TMZ has made access to celebrities easier than ever, making the job more difficult than ever. Don’t worry though, there’ll still be time for mushy romance.
At the moment no cast is attached, but what’s the betting rumours about Beyonce starring in the Whitney Houston role will start imminently? All Deadline says is that Warner wants ‘to take a young female singer with global appeal and give her the platform that The Bodyguard did Houston’. Yep, they probably want Beyonce, although it might be more fun with Lady Gaga. And who reckons they’ll offer Sam Worthington the Kevin Costner role?