Sam Taylor-Johnson Set to Direct Long-Awaited Amy Winehouse Biopic
The long-awaited Amy Winehouse biopic – which was first announced all the way back in 2018 – has finally moved a step forward in production. Sam Taylor-Johnson has joined the production team as director, according to Deadline.
The film is believed to be a passion project for Taylor-Johnson, who was a close friend of Winehouse’s. Taylor-Johnson is known for her previous work on Nowhere Boy and Fifty Shades of Grey. The upcoming biopic, titled Back to Black, is written by Matt Greenhalgh (who previously collaborated with Taylor-Johnson on Nowhere Boy) and will be produced by Studiocanal, Debra Hayward, Tracey Seaward, and Alison Owen (Lily Allen's mother).
According to the reports, Back to Black (not to be confused with the 2018 documentary Amy Winehouse: Back to Black) has the support of the Amy Winehouse Estate, including the late singer’s father Mitchell Winehouse. Originally, filming for the project was supposed to start in 2019 and Kinky Boots writer Geoff Deane was tapped to pen the screenplay. It is unclear why the changes and delays in production occurred.
While there's currently no casting news, back in 2018, Mitchell Winehouse denied suggestions that Lady Gaga might sign on to play the late singer.
“I wouldn’t mind betting it would be an unknown, young, English — London, cockney — actress who looks a bit like Amy,” he told British tabloid The Sun at the time. “What we want is somebody to portray Amy in the way that she was…the funny, brilliant, charming and horrible person that she was. There’s no point really me making the film because I’m her dad. But to get the right people to do it, that’s very important, and we will.”
In other Amy Winehouse news, the late artist was recently the subject of an exhibition at London's Design Museum, and an auction selling more than 800 of her personal items happened back in November of 2021.
See Sam Taylor-Johnson's social media post about Back to Black below.
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Article Image: Amy Winehouse in 2008, in front of a black background. (Fionn Kidney [CC BY 2.0] via Wikimedia Commons.)