Family-Approved Amy Winehouse Biopic In The Works

Just days after Amy Winehouse‘s estate revealed plans to tour a hologram of the singer, her family also announced that a big-screen biopic about Winehouse is in the works. The Winehouse family will serve as executive producers on the upcoming biopic, which will begin filming in 2019, the Guardian reports. Proceeds from the film will reportedly benefit the Amy Winehouse Foundation.

“We now feel able to celebrate Amy’s extraordinary life and talent,” the singer’s father Mitch Winehouse said in a statement. “And we know through the Amy Winehouse Foundation that the true story of her illness can help so many others who might be experiencing similar issues.”

Monumental Pictures’ Debra Hayward and Alison Owen, the mother of fellow British singer Lily Allen, will also produce the film, with Kinky Boots writer Geoff Deane on board to script Winehouse’s life story.

“We’re proud that Mitch Winehouse has entrusted us with the story of amazing Amy, an icon whose songs have provided the soundtrack to a generation,” Monumental Pictures said in a statement.

In a separate interview with the Sun, Mitch Winehouse rejected his own suggestion that Lady Gaga portray Amy Winehouse, saying instead that the actress “be an unknown, young, English – London, cockney – actress who looks a bit like Amy… What we want is somebody to portray Amy in the way that she was… the funny, brilliant, charming and horrible person that she was.”

Winehouse’s life, from her meteoric rise to tragic death, was previously the subject of the critically acclaimed 2015 documentary Amy, a film that the singer’s family called a “disgrace.” Another documentary about the singer, Amy Winehouse – Back to Black, is due out in November.