Amy Winehouse’s estate have confirmed a multi-million pound deal with Monumental Pictures to produce a biopic of the late singer’s life, The Sun report.
Alison Owen, a veteran UK film producer, is reportedly set to direct a script by Kinky Boots writer Geoff Deane. The film, which starts shooting next year, will apparently cover Winehouse’s rise to fame and her death in 2011 aged 27.
“What we want is somebody to portray Amy in the way that she was… the funny, brilliant, charming and horrible person that she was,” the singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse, told The Sun. “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.”
He added: “I wouldn’t mind betting it would be an unknown, young, English – London, Cockney – actress who looks a bit like Amy.”
The film will likely be more straightforward than Amy, Asif Kapadia’s 2015 documentary about the singer. Mitch Winehouse made his dissatisfaction with the documentary known at the time, and started planning this biopic in response – so expect it to gloss over some of the more controversial questions raised by Kapadia’s film. Revisit our 2015 article on why an Amy Winehouse biopic could be a step too far.
The announcement comes just a few days after it was announced that Amy Winehouse would be touring next year – as a hologram.