Woody McClain to Reprise Role as Bobby Brown in Upcoming BET Biopic
The New Edition Story quickly became an important for the culture moment after its release earlier this year on BET. The miniseries drew in viewers, touched on older fans’ of the boy band’s nostalgia, and put a younger crowd of new fans on the journey of one of the R&B industry’s most influential boy groups. It also helped put some hot new black talent on the map in Hollywood with the casting of the miniseries’ stars Keith Powers, Luke James, Bryshere Gray, Elijah Kelly, Algee Smith, and Woody McClain.
And in true New Edition fashion, the actor that played Bobby Brown, Woody McClain, has signed onto his own two-part follow-up to the miniseries – and is doing so solo. The project is titled The Bobby Brown Story.
According to Deadline, The Bobby Brown Story will pick up where The New Edition Story left off, chronicling “the talented but troubled singer’s exit from the popular 80s boy band through his solo success, his affair with Janet Jackson and tabloid-fodder marriage to pop icon Whitney Houston. Spanning 30 years of Brown’s life, the new project follows his story from the hard streets of Roxbury, where he turned to a life of drug dealing before being given the chance to prove himself as a solo artist.”
Returning to the franchise is writer Abdul Williams and executive producer Jesse Collins.
Brown’s BET two-part biopic will be a story of redemption. The R&B artist that the film is based on has had quite the life and quite the career. As a solo artist, he was able to obtain eight top 10 pop singles consecutively. He also endured several arrests and alongside Houston, he had to work hard to overcome his substance addiction. Years after the couple’s 2007 divorce, Houston was found in a Beverly Hilton bathtub, dead.
Three years after losing his estranged wife, Brown also lost their daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, after she had been in a coma that spanned the course of six months and was labeled brain dead. Pain has been an overarching theme in the entertainer’s life, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. He has found love again and is working hard to the best man that he can be, the best husband he can be, and the best father he can be.
So far, McClain is the only confirmed cast member for the film, which is slated for a fall 2018 premiere.
Photo Credit: PR Photos
