Nick Cave and Warren Ellis to score Amy Winehouse biopic Back To Black

Nick Cave and longtime collaborator Warren Ellis have been commissioned to score Sam Taylor-Johnson’s forthcoming Amy Winehouse biopic, Back to Black.

The film will star Marisa Abela as the late artist, featuring her recordings of several songs from Winehouse’s catalogue. Cave and Ellis will supply the non-diegetic accompaniment, and Variety has recently reported that the two composers have already recorded between 20-30 minutes of score.

Back to Black marks the fifth film soundtrack collaboration for the pair, whose previous scores include The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), The Proposition (2005), The Road (2009) and, most recently, the Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde (2022).

Warren Ellis first joined Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in 1993 for a temporary stint as a violinist, and the Australian musicians have not stopped since, with Ellis becoming a pivotal collaborator with Cave on soundtracks, in Bad Seed side-group Grinderman and other projects. In 2022, they released their first full-length studio album as a duo. Carnage was met with universal acclaim from critics and audiences alike, earning a Metacritic ‘Album of Year’ award.

Back to Black charts Winehouse’s earlier years in London and her icarian rise to fame prior to her untimely death in 2011 at the age of 27. The cast also includes Jack O’Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil, Winehouse’s former husband, Eddie Marsan as Mitch Winehouse, Juliet Crown as Janis Winehouse and Lesley Manville as Amy’s grandmother, Cynthia. The film opens in Irish and UK cinemas on 12 April.