Production will most likely begin in the first quarter of 2009 in Jamaica and other locations in time for a late 2009 qualifying release for the 82nd Annual Academy Awards in 2010. The producers are currently out to casting and expect to announce the director shortly.
The news comes weeks after Martin Scorsese announced that he would be making a documentary about Bob Marley's life and work.
Lizzie Borden is adapting the book, a tumultuous ride that takes in young love in the Jamaican ghettoes of Trenchtown to Marley's rise to reggae superstardom, their lives in activism, a failed double assassination plot and Bob Marley's eventual demise from cancer at the age of 35.
Langlais will produce and Rita Marley will serve as executive producer. TWC production co-chief Michael Cole and production executive Ben Famiglietti brought the project in and will oversee for the company.
'This is like a dream come true,' Marley said. 'It's like a gift from the Almighty and I hope it's going to inspire women all over the world. There will be many flavours to capture this story about how a girl from the ghetto and a boy from the countryside fell in love and created their own reality. I've waited a long time to tell this story All that, and all that we went through went into this. Now is that time. This is my story.'
'Rita Marley is the only one and the only way to tell this extraordinary love story,' Langlais said. 'There's a reggae song, 'She Who Lives It, Knows It.' Rita lived it all with Bob - the rugged years in the Trenchtown ghetto, the rise to fame and stardom with the Wailers, the complex love affair that spanned his short life, the attempted assassination of both of them on the eve of a concert, and his tragic death at 35.'
Cole said the film would encompass 'the whole spectrum of emotions but ultimately it will be uplifting and triumphant.'
TWC's executive vice president of business and legal affairs negotiated the deal with Mickey Freiberg from ACME Talent Literary and Eric Weissmann from Weissmann, Wolf, Bergman, Colman & Silverman on behalf of Langlais and Borden and attorney Bob Epstein, Marvin Zolt and Claude Ismael on behalf of Rita Marley.
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