Grammy-winner Amy Winehouse is the next late great star to be getting the Hollywood treatment. According to Deadline, a biopic of Amy Winehouse titled Back to Black is now in the works, with none other than Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson helming the project.
With a script penned by Matt Greenhalgh, the upcoming biopic will give fans a new look at the life and music of Winehouse, an iconic musician who began her career as a North London jazz singer before selling platinum records. Named after her hit album Back to Black, the film will show the star’s rise to fame before her sudden passing at 27 in 2011, after her long battle with drugs and alcohol abuse.
Winehouse’s story has long been in tinsel town’s eyeline, and over the years, various features have been pitched, such as Lotus Entertainment’s unmade drama movie starring Noomi Rapace. But ultimately, no film, aside from a 2015 A24 documentary titled Amy, has entirely made it to production until now.
Deadline reports that the upcoming musical Back to Black has the “full support from the Amy Winehouse estate”, and with Taylor-Johnson now on board as the flick’s director, the film is going full steam ahead into its preproduction phase.
Taylor-Johnson is best known for her helming the 2015 romance movie Fifty Shades of Grey, which despite receiving mixed reviews, took the box office by storm, grossing a whopping $570 million worldwide.
With Johnson behind the wheel, it seems like StudioCanal is hoping to replicate some of this financial success with its upcoming biopic.
No release date for Back to Black has been confirmed yet. However, it is expected that news on the casting for Amy Winehouse will be revealed in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for updates.