Above is your first official photo (courtesy of People magazine) from Sony Pictures' Sparkle remake, which stars Jordin Sparks, Whitney Houston, Carmen Ejogo, Tika Sumpter, Derek Luke, Mike Epps, and others, shepherded by Salim and Mara Brock Akil.

The film, which will feature original music from R. Kelly, will hit theaters on August 10, 2012.

As already noted, our understanding is that this Sparkle will not be a modern re-telling of the original version, as we initially thought, but rather will be set in the 1960s. How will it differentiate itself from the original, or even from the recent Dreamgirls (2006)? And if it's just a rehashing of the original, but with a different set of actors, what's the point?

*Shrug*

All questions that I hope will be answered eventually, as the film's release date draws near.

Principal photography is supposed to have wrapped already, so I suspect we'll get a first trailer for the film soon enough.

In the above phot, Jordin Sparks plays the titular Sparkle (Irene Cara in the original); Whitney Houston is the sisters' mother Effie (Mary Alice in the original).