Nick Cave and Warren Ellis will score the forthcoming Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black.
The film is directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, who began as a visual artist before segueing to film directing, helming Nowhere Boy (whose writer, Matt Greenhalgh, has penned Back to Black’s screenplay), Fifty Shades of Grey and A Million Little Pieces.
She said: “Nick and Warren were the only musicians in my mind to score Back to Black. Over the years, I’ve listened to everything they’ve composed and longed to realise the dream of working together. Their sensibility as well as understanding of this story has led to a profoundly deep and moving film score.”
Cave and Ellis are longtime collaborators, whose work together stretches back for over 30 years in Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. They later formed another group, Grinderman, and have scored numerous films including The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Proposition, The Road and, most recently, Blonde, the Marilyn Monroe biopic starring Ana de Armas.
Back to Black, released on 12 April in the UK, stars Marisa Abela as Winehouse and charts her rise to global stardom and her relationship with husband Blake Fielder-Civil (played by Jack O’Connell), as she struggles with addiction. Eddie Marsan, Juliet Cowan and Lesley Manville play members of the Winehouse family.