Nick Cave and fellow Bad Seed Warren Ellis have been tapped to score Sam Taylor-Johnson’s upcoming Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black. The film stars Marisa Abela as the late artist, and features a number of Winehouse’s hits, recorded by the lead actress. Cave and Ellis will supply nondiegetic music for the project; a new Variety report states that the collaborators have already recorded around 20-30 minutes of score.
Of Cave and Ellis’ musical contributions to her film, Taylor-Johnson said in press materials: “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 realize the dream of working together. Their sensibility as well as understanding of this story has led to a profoundly deep and moving film score.”
Back to Black opens in UK theaters on April 12, and comes to the United States on May 17. The movie charts Winehouse’s London upbringing and meteoric rise to fame prior to her death from alcohol poisoning in 2011. The cast also includes Jack O’Connell as Winehouse’s former husband Blake Fielder-Civil, Eddie Marsan as Mitch Winehouse, Juliet Cowan as Janis Winehouse, and Lesley Manville as Amy’s grandmother, Cynthia.
Cave and Ellis have scored a number of films together, including The Proposition, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Road, and most recently, the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde.
