‘Back To Black’ Trailer: Marisa Abela Is Amy Winehouse In Sam Taylor-Johnson’s Musical Biopic

Focus Features has dropped the first full trailer for Back To Black, filmmaker Sam Taylor-Johnson’s biopic of musical trailblazer Amy Winehouse, starring Industry breakout Marisa Abela. Watch above. 

The studio has also shared a new US release date for the pic. It will drop stateside on May 17. Studiocanal will still release the pic in UK cinemas on April 12. There is also a new synopsis for the pic: The extraordinary story of Amy Winehouse’s early rise to fame from her early days in Camden through the making of her groundbreaking album, Back to Black that catapulted Winehouse to global fame. Told through Amy’s eyes and inspired by her deeply personal lyrics, the film explores and embraces the many layers of the iconic artist and the tumultuous love story at the center of one of the most legendary albums of all time.

Supporting Abela are BAFTA-winning actor Jack O’Connell as Blake Fielder-Civil, Eddie Marsan as Mitch Winehouse, Juliet Cowan as Janis Winehouse, and Golden Globe and Oscar-nominated Lesley Manville as Winehouse’s grandmother, Cynthia. 

The pic is written by Matt Greenhalgh (Nowhere Boy, Control), while Giles Martin (Rocketman, The Beatles: Get Back) handles music production, and Nina Gold (1917, The Power of the Dog) was on casting. The pic is produced by Alison Owen (Saving Mr. Banks, Me Before You, Elizabeth) and Debra Hayward (Les Miserables, Bridget Jones’s Baby) of Monumental Pictures alongside Nicky Kentish-Barnes (About Time, Everest, About A Boy). Taylor-Johnson is executive producer, alongside Ron Halpern and SVP Global Production Joe Naftalin who executive produce on behalf of Studiocanal.

Taylor-Johnson, whose credits include Fifty Shades of Grey and A Million Little Pieces, has worked with musical biopics before. She directed Nowhere Boy, a feature on the early life of Beatles legend John Lennon. Abela is best known for her breakout role in HBO’s Industry. 

Discussing Abela and her work on the biopic earlier this year, Taylor-Johnson said: “Discovering a talent like Marisa Abela is akin to finding gold dust. The moment she looked into the lens at her first audition, I knew she was the perfect actor to play Amy Winehouse.” 

Taylor-Johnson added: “She put in an enormous amount of work, and attention to every detail and she trained daily for hours to be able to sing throughout the entire movie. She doesn’t impersonate Amy, she inhabits her.”

Check out the trailer above.