Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody gets an emotional new trailer

9 November 2022, 14:45 | Updated: 9 November 2022, 15:13

'The Voice' is finally coming to the silver screen.

A new full trailer for the upcoming Whitney Houston biopic, I Wanna Dance With Somebody has been unveiled.

Sony has taken on the task of bringing Whitney's spirit to the cinema, and have called the biopic a “no-holds-barred portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice."

British actress Naomi Ackie will star in the lead role, in the a biographical drama about the life and times of the iconic pop singer.

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Known for her previous roles in intergalactic movie franchise Star Wars, as well as television roles in Doctor Who, The End of the F***ing World (for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2020) and Master Of None, Ackie has taken on the daunting task of embodying one of pop music's most beloved icons.

Alongside Naomi Ackie in the lead role as Whitney, the cast also includes Ashton Sanders as her troubled ex-husband Bobby Brown and Stanley Tucci as her record producer Clive Davis.

Whitney’s father John Houston will be played by Clarke Peters and Whitney’s mother Cissy Houston will be portrayed by Tamara Tunie.

Take a look at the new official trailer for I Wanna Dance With Somebody below:

Watch the second trailer for I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Whitney Houston is one of the biggest-selling recording artists of all time, topping charts around the globe with iconic songs such as 'I Will Always Love You', 'Saving All My Love for You', 'I Have Nothing', and 'Greatest Love of All'.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody recounts the story of the New Jersey choir girl - and cousin to Dionne Warwick - who made her way to global success both critically and commercially.

During the trailer, Naomi Ackie's Whitney states: “My dream? Sing what I want to sing, be how I want to be. Reach as big an audience as I can."

And she achieved her dream of being a worldwide pop phenomenon, despite not being considered white enough for white audiences and black enough for black audiences, which is touched upon in the trailer:

Houston is told that her music "isn’t Black enough" to which she defiantly responds: "Look, I don’t know how to sing Black, and I don’t know how to sing white either. I know how to sing."

Watch the trailer for I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Despite being one of the world's best-selling musicians, Whitney herself went into acting on the big screen, appearing in The Bodyguard in 1992 alongside Kevin Costner.

The film still retains the record for the best-selling film soundtrack of all time, with a remake currently in the works that has drawn criticism from the original's fanbase and Whitney's former partner Bobby Brown.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody will of course detail Whitney's rise to fame, but will very much likely touch upon the troubled singer's battle with addiction that plagued the later years of her career.

Her struggle with addiction eventually led to her death in 2012 at age 48 from drowning in a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub.

Kasi Lemmons - best known for directing Harriet - is at the helm for I Wanna Dance With Somebody, from a script by Bohemian Rhapsody screenwriter Anthony McCarten.

Sony has scheduled the movie to release in cinemas on December 23 in the US and December 26 in the UK.