Whitney Houston’s final film to be released in summer

PanARMENIAN.Net - A musical film tipped as a vehicle for the late singer Whitney Houston to make an acting comeback will be released in cinemas this summer, The Guardian reported, citing Variety.

Sparkle is a remake of the 1976 film of the same name, a personal favourite of Houston's. She plays the mother of three sisters in a musical group who are dealing with the fallout from fame and drugs in a story which was inspired by the Supremes. The singer had acted as executive producer and also recorded several songs for the soundtrack. She had completed all her scenes by the time of her death on Saturday, February 13 in a Beverly Hills hotel room hours before she was due to attend a pre-Grammy awards party.

The Sparkle remake will also star Jordin Sparks, Cee Lo Green, Mike Epps and Derek Luke.

The original Sparkle was inspirational in the creation of the musical that would eventually debut on Broadway in 1981 as Dreamgirls, later adapted into a 2006 film of the same name which won Jennifer Hudson an Oscar for her turn as Effie White. Houston's godmother, Aretha Franklin, recorded many of the songs for the Sparkle soundtrack.

Houston also starred in the popular 1992 film The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner, but had not appeared on the big screen since 1996's The Preacher's Wife. At the time she was reportedly one of Hollywood's highest paid female actors, earning $10m a movie.

Houston's body was found by a member of her entourage in the bathtub of her room at the Beverly Hills Hilton on Saturday afternoon. She had been due to attend a pre-Grammy awards party at the hotel hosted by Clive Davis, the record producer and music industry executive credited with discovering her in a New York nightclub in 1983. Attempts to resuscitate her failed and she was pronounced dead at 3.55pm.

Sources claimed that prescription pill bottles were found in the room, and that Houston, 48, had looked dishevelled and disoriented when leaving a Hollywood club after a performance last week. An autopsy has reportedly been undertaken but the results are not expected for several weeks.