Redemption biopic: Bob Marley!!

The first ever biopic of Bob Marley is in the works, after film producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein optioned the rights to the autobiography of the reggae star's widow, Rita Marley.

The movie will be based on the 2004 memoir No Woman No Cry: My Life with Bob Marley, which chronicles the couple's tempestuous 15-year marriage until his death from cancer in 1981. The couple had four children together, survived several separations and affairs - Marley could have fathered as many as 22 children, and legally recognised ten - and an assassination attempt in 1976.

Rita Marley will serve as executive producer on the project. "This is about a girl from the ghetto and a boy from the rural areas," she 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."

"Every inch of me is in there," she also told The Hollywood Reporter. "I don't want a fairy tale or Cinderella story."

Marley would like her husband's daughter-in-law, singer-songwriter Lauryn Hill, to portray her. "Lauryn would be ideal [to play me]," Marley explained. "She sees my life as her life." Hill is married to Rohan Marley, the son the reggae star had with Janet Hunt.

The as-yet-untitled project will be directed by Rudy Langlais, an executive producer on the 1999 Denzel Washington film The Hurricane. The film will be an "epic romance", Langlais told The Hollywood Reporter. "It's miraculous that Rita is still here after being shot in the head," he added, referring to the assassination attempt on the couple.

Screenwriter Lizzie Borden is currently in Jamaica to finish the script. Filming is set to begin early next year with a view to release the biopic in cinemas in 2009. It's expected the movie will partly be filmed in Jamaica.

It is as yet unclear who will portray the legendary musician. The film-makers are looking for two actors, one who would portray Marley aged 15 and the other one as an adult.

The project comes hot on the heels of another film about the reggae star. Martin Scorsese announced last week that he will direct a documentary about Bob Marley, co-produced by his son Ziggy. They are looking to release the film on February 6 2010, on what would have been the singer's 65th birthday.

Nor is this the first attempt to bring Bob Marley's life to the big screen. In 1999, Hollywood studio Warner Brothers planned to make a biopic based on Catch a Fire, a 1991 biography by Timothy White. Rohan Marley and Lauryn Hill were then considered to portray Bob and Rita Marley, but the project fell through after director Ron Shelton, and his replacement George Armitage, left the project.

Natty Notes

• What I can't wait for in a Peter Tosh Movie.
• I am Looking forward to this Bob Marley Movies though.