After Beatles, AI to bring Edith Piaf voice back to life for biopic

French singer Edith Piaf poses at her home in New York in September 1946. Warner Music and Piaf beneficiaries announced on Nov. 14, 2023, the advanced development of a 90-minute animated biopic of Edith Piaf produced via artificial intelligence “to re-create her voice and image,” as 2023 marks the 60th anniversary of the death of the French singer. ERIC SCHWAB / AFP

PARIS—A new biopic on the life of Edith Piaf will use artificial intelligence to allow the French star to narrate her own story, Warner Music and her estate said on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

“Edith” is “in the final phase of development,” sources close to Warner Music France said, but no release date has been scheduled.

The unveiling of the “innovative and revolutionary technological project using AI to re-create her voice and image” comes 60 years after Piaf’s death, the statement said.

It also follows the success of the Beatles’ latest release “Now and Then” which, with a little help from AI, last week soared to the band’s first UK No. 1 single in 54 years.

Artificial intelligence helped isolate the late John Lennon’s vocals from a tape he recorded in 1978, two years before he was murdered.

The two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney, aged 81, and Ringo Starr, 83, finished “Now and Then” last year, including the late George Harrison’s guitar parts recorded in 1995.

For the singer of French classics “La vie en Rose” and “Non, je ne regrette rien,” AI will be fed hundreds of voice and image clips, some more than 80 years old, to re-create her unique style and “further enhance the authenticity and emotional impact of her story.”

Original recordings will be used for her greatest hits, Warner said.

The 90-minute film will move between Paris and New York from 1920 to 1960 and be narrated by the singer’s voice, including hitherto unknown “aspects of her life.”