Another Bob Marley film slated for development, eventual sinking by Marley estate

By Sean O'Neal | August 18, 2010 | 8:43pm

Aux Features Film

Emmy-nominated director Jenny Ash (America: The Story Of Us) is currently developing a movie based on (part of) the life of reggae icon/patron saint of frat parties Bob Marley. As Deadline reports, her film will focus on the year Marley spent living in London in 1977 after surviving an assassination attempt in Jamaica, where he played a legendary gig at the Rainbow Theatre and also hung out with the Sex Pistols. The year ended with Marley breaking his toe while playing soccer, then refusing—due, apparently, to his religious beliefs—to have it amputated after doctors discovered it contained the cancer that eventually killed him. So…. It’s a comedy? No, a romance, sort of: Ash sees it as a love triangle between Marley, his wife Rita, and his mistress, Jamaican beauty queen and Miss World winner Cindy Breakspeare.

Of course, it’s the inclusion of Breakspeare that may end up sinking the project, like so many proposed Marley biopics before it: Rita Marley obviously still harbors deep resentment toward her late husband’s mistress, and unfortunately she holds all the rights to his songs. Without being able to use any of Marley’s music, this either will end up never happening, or it will devolve into a Jackie Jormp-Jomp situation, with renditions of “No Woman, Don’t Die,” “Buffalo Shoulder,” “Stand Up, Get Out” and other 30 Rock-derived references.