Refusing to leave viewers with all that pain—in what, we can only assume, would be the rain—Lifetime has announced that it’s bringing back their smiles, in the form of a biopic about the life of R&B singer Toni Braxton. For once, the network—now one of America’s top employers of off-the-rack Johns Stamos—is going the authorized route, which means that it can can use the title of Braxton’s own memoir for the upcoming project: Unbreak My Heart. Given that the network’s true-life output tends to produce uninspired names like The Unauthorized ______ Story, with the blank filled in with some member of ABC’s TGIF line-up or a steamy primetime soap, Unbreak might qualify as Lifetime’s greatest titling masterpiece since Nanny Cam or The Bride He Bought Online.
The film will track the ups and downs of Braxton’s career, including musical success, chronic illnesses, and ongoing struggles with her family life. It’ll be directed by Daredevil co-star Vondie Curtis-Hall, whose sideline as a director of Lifetime original stories includes Abducted: The Carlina White Story, and Redemption: The Stan Tookie Williams Story. (He also directed the classic Firefly episode “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” which isn’t relevant to this whole Toni Braxton thing, but is a weird fact you can impress people with the next time you talk about Daredevil.)
Braxton will executive produce and appear in the film, although there’s no word yet on who’ll play the singer in her younger years. Lifetime’s other current projects include a movie about the Manson family, as well as, shockingly enough, The Unauthorized Beverly Hills 90210 Story, and The Unauthorized Melrose Place Story.