We've been reporting for years now on several different incarnations of a potential Bob Marley biopic-- first Jamie Foxx was going to tackle the role, then Martin Scorsese was going to make a documentary that he then handed over to Jonathan Demme, then the Weinstein Company picked up the rights to wife Rita Marley's memoir and planned a biopic based on that. But here we are several years in and none of these projects have gotten anywhere-- so why not kick off a new one, right?
The odds are even tougher this time around-- documentary director Jenny Ash is embarking on the project with no access to Marley's music, and given that the story she wants to tell is about Marley's affair with former Miss World Cindy Breakspeare, it's unlikely Marley's widow Rita, who controls the estate, is going to offer them up. Still, the story sounds more interesting than your average life-spanning biopic, taking place over one year that Marley spent in London, hanging out at punk clubs, suffering a soccer injury that ended his life, and caught in a love triangle between the beauty queen as his wife.
If the movie focuses more on the personal story, though, they might not even need the music rights, and could couch the story behind the usual disclaimers and changed names that could help them get away with it. It would be bizarre if the one Marley movie to make it out of this derby is the one that's the least based on his entire life, but kind of like how Todd Haynes put any other Dylan biopic to shame with I'm Not There, the most interesting story about Marley may well be the most unusual.
