There was plenty of backlash directed at Lifetime before it debuted its Whitney Houston biopic Whitney, but the channel managed to score great audience numbers during its Sunday night, Jan. 18, programming block.
The film itself averaged 4.5 million viewers between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to that, the interview special Bobby Brown: Remembering Whitney managed to hold on to 4.1 million of those initial viewers between 10 p.m and 11 p.m. Finally, the program Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances drew 3.2 million viewers during the 11 p.m. to midnight hour.
Whitney was the channel's biggest hit since last year's Flowers in the Attic, despite the fact that Houston's family publicly dismissed the film.
"If you watch this movie, watch it knowing that Lifetime is notorious for making bad biopics of deceased celebrities and brace yourself for the worst," wrote Pat Houston, the vocalist's sister-in-law and president of her estate, via a post on the performer's website. "You should expect people will always rise to the occasion for prominence and profit ... not love, respect or honor ... I question the morality of the making of this because of the lack of experience knowing Whitney's life."
Our own Ryan Book noted that the Twitterverse was happier with the movie than with Lifetime's previous efforts.
Another follow-up story by our own Shawn Christ noted that critics enjoyed actress Yaya DeCosta — who portrayed Houston — but disliked the film as a whole.
"For two hours, this film cherry-picks moments of Houston's life — some recognizable, some not — and stitches them together into a perplexing, not altogether comforting quilt," New York Times critic Jon Caramanica wrote. "It feels as if it were conceived and executed from afar. What's more, this is a biopic that's skeptical of its subject, that at times appears to be working actively against her interests."
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