If you followed the saga of "Rehab" singer Amy Winehouse during her too-short, chaotic and meteoric rise to worldwide fame, you might remember that it often felt like made-for-TV movie with endless, often tragic, twists and turns.
Arrests, hospital visits, trips to rehab, drunken brawls, quickie marriages, Grammy wins, platinum sales and an endless parade of false starts in the studio during sessions for her never-completed third album. Now, director Asif Kapadia is developing an untitled documentary on the late singer's life that Focus Features plans to shop to buyers at next month's Cannes Film Market, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The Winehouse movie from British filmmaker Kapadia, known for "Senna," his 2010 documentary on the life of Brazilian racing champ Ayrton Senna, will be co-produced by Universal Music.
"This is an incredibly modern, emotional and relevant film that has the power to capture the zeitgeist and shine a light on the world we live in, in a way that very few films can," said Kapadia in a statement. "Amy was a once-in-a-generation talent who captured everyone's attention; she wrote and sung from the heart and everyone fell under her spell. But tragically Amy seemed to fall apart under the relentless media attention, her troubled relationships, her global success and precarious lifestyle."
Winehouse, who died at age 27 in July 2011 from accidental alcohol poisoning, continues to influence today's generation of stars, from Adele to Lady Gaga and Beyoncé, who has teamed with Andre 3000 to cover "Back to Black" for the upcoming soundtrack to "The Great Gatsby."