Whitney Houston was just starting to revive her acting career before her untimely death back in February. She had already completed filming on Sparkle, a remake of the 1976 musical emulating the story of The Supremes. Also there was talk of a sequel to her 1995 hit, Waiting to Exhale. While Houston was a key fixture in the ensemble, which also featured Loretta Devine and Angela Bassett, her death didn't seem to slow down progress on the film. Just a few days later the President of Fox 2000 said the film would continue as some sort of tribute to the fallen star. Now that plan seems to have been confirmed by Devine.
Speaking to Good Day LA(how do people watch that crap!?), she had this to say....
Devine: "They're trying to put together a second movie and now the focus would be a tribute to her, which would be wonderful. We don't know if they're going to try to introduce a new character or pull her character out all together," she said. "So it's a lot of rewrites that they'll have to go through, so I don't know if it's going to happen as soon as we thought it would happen."
Forest Whitaker is set to come back and direct, and there seemed to be some problems cranking out a workable script even before Houston's death. Now that task only gets more difficult as the decision has to be made how to address her absence. Introducing a new character could be a double-edged sword. Bringing in someone like Queen Latifah could work because of her similarity in age and vocal talent, but you always run the risk of fans turning against someone perceived as a Houston replacement, whether or not that's actually the case. There's also the possibility that Houston's real life daughter, Bobbi Kristina, could take on a role in a "passing the torch" moment. What I think should happen is that the film will simply focus on the three remaining friends and their feelings over the loss to their close knit circle.
