“I wanted to focus on her vast achievements,” McCarten said. While the film’s final cut includes some of the grimier, or more controversial, details of Houston’s story – in fact certain things are made more explicit than before – the film-makers admit that their primary goal was to make the film a celebration. “They had approved the script but seeing it as a movie was a different thing.” “One of the things that was most challenging about this was dealing with real people, with real emotions and memories and points of view,” she said. In fact, the movie’s director, Kasi Lemmons, said there were scenes in the film that definitely made the estate uncomfortable.
The public can smell a rat if it’s a puff piece.” “I said to them ‘you will not have authorial control over this,’” he said. Though they have all endorsed the final product, McCarten strongly contests the assumption that it resulted in any softening or censoring of his work. I Wanna Dance with Somebody is the brainchild of Houston’s estate, which includes her sister-in-law and executor Pat Houston, as well as the company that controls key parts of her musical rights, Primary Wave, and the man who signed, and some say, shaped her, Clive Davis. It’s one many may approach with a bit of skepticism.
