Bob Marley Biopic Emancipates Itself From Mental Slavery, Gets Production Deal

After years spent serving as a staple of dorm-room decor and graphic t-shirt design, Bob Marley will have his life retold in biopic form. The Weinstein Co. will produce and distribute a movie about the legendary reggae singer’s life based on Rita Marley’s 2004 book No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley; she will also serve as executive producer on the film. And because letting a memoir-happy widow executive-produce a project isn’t precarious enough, they just might cast the always-dependable Lauryn Hill in a leading role.

“Lauryn would be ideal (to play me),” said Marley. “She sees my life as her life.”

Her husband’s son with Janet Hunt, Rohan, is married to the troubled former Fugees singer, who largely disappeared from the music scene after her Grammy-winning 1998 debut solo album, “The Miseducation of Lauren Hill.”

Hill will vet the adaptation currently being written by Lizzie Borden (“Working Girls”), who is down in Jamaica completing the script.

The untitled project from producer Rudy Langlais (“The Hurricane”) is tentatively set to begin filming early next year with a projected late 2009 release date. Langlais said the film will be an “epic romance,” including the Marleys’ life and the assassination attempt on the couple.

If all goes well, this could be like Ray for the stoner crowd (at the very least it would have a killer soundtrack). But this makes me nervous:

Marley plans to be on the set every day. “Every inch of me is in there,” she says, “and I don’t want a fairy tale or Cinderella story.”

I’m all for showing the realities of the government yards in Trenchtown, but something tells me the widow Marley isn’t going to be the most easygoing of executive producers. If this doesn’t work out, the world will have the Scorsese documentary to fall back on, although the question remains: which one will be better? Or, more to the point, which one will be better when you’re high?

Widow to produce Bob Marley movie [Reuters] Marley documentary next gig on Scorsese tour [Reuters]