One Bob Marley movie in the works apparently just isn’t enough.
Marty Scorsese might have his upcoming documentary in the works to meet the anniversary of what would have been Marley’s 65th birthday (it won’t see release until February 2010), but now the Weinstein Company have their own picture in the works – this one a biopic.
The maverick film duo Harvey and Bob Weinstein have optioned the rights to “No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley,” written by Rita Marley, the reggae legend’s wife.
Update: According to a “corrected” (updated?) Hollywood Reporter story, Rita Marley is not only executive-producing, if she has it her way, former Fugee singer, Lauryn Hill will play her in the film (see how that ties into an older version of this biopic below; Hill is “married” to Rohan Marley, but Rita is not his mother, the legitimacy of their “marriage” has been questioned more than once).
“Lauryn would be ideal [to play me]” Marley told HR. “She sees my life as her life.” Hill will apparently approve the adaptation currently being written by Lizzie Borden (“Working Girls”), who is down in Jamaica completing the script.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Marley will be played by two actors, one portraying him as a teenager and another as an adult, with the “option of the original songs, covers sung by an actor or a “Ray”-style blend of the two all possible for the soundtrack.”
Published in 2004 by Hyperion ‘My Life With Bob Marley’ chronicles the couple’s famously tempestuous relationship which survived several break-ups, affairs and spawned four children (Marley allegedly may have fathered up to 22 children). The project is said to be in early development with an expected late 2009 release (just enough time to beat Scorsese).
Marley died of cancer at 36 in 1981, and Rita Marley defends herself in the against allegations that she financially mismanaged his estate.
“This is about a girl from the ghetto and a boy from the rural areas,” Rita Marley told Variety. “It’s more than being a superstar — we have trod the rocky roads. It’s more than just a story, it’s a reality.”
Previous Bob Marley biopics hit roadbloacks; Warner Bros. had optioned Timothy White’s “Catch a Fire” in 1999 with Lauryn Hill up for the role of Rita and Marley’s son Rohan (Hill’s – estranged? – husband) to play his father, but the project ground to a halt after writer/director Ron Shelton, left the film.