The first trailer for Reinaldo Marcus Green’s forthcoming Bob Marley biopic, Bob Marley: One Love, was released on Thursday (6 July).
The movie, set to hit cinemas next year, stars 37-year-old British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir (One Night in Miami) as the reggae music icon, and is produced by Marley’s son Ziggy Marley.
One Love charts the “Three Little Birds” singer’s rise to fame and the turbulent social conditions that gave rise to his One Love Peace Concert in 1978, which was held during a violent political crisis in Jamaica.
“It was exciting and emotional,” Ziggy told Entertainment Weekly of filming the biopic.
“I was very focused on making sure that we represented him right, and being given that responsibility to help Reinaldo was a very serious thing for me. We explored different elements of Bob that people don’t know, different emotions that he went through. I actually learned some stuff, too. As someone who was there in this time period, it brings back a lot of memories and things that were hidden inside of me before. It was a very emotional journey.”
Green, 41, is best known for directing King Richard, the 2021 biopic starring Will Smith as the father of tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams.
“To get the blessing of Ziggy and the family to come on and be the steward of the ship was significant for me because I knew that I was gonna get access to things that aren’t in the public domain: real conversations and memories from people who were there in the room,” Green told EW.
“Ziggy was young, but he was still there. And when you are 11 or 12, that’s the most impressionable time. You do remember a lot from those periods of time.”
Lashana Lynch plays Marley’s wife and Ziggy’s mother, Rita, whom the musician married in 1966; Jesse Cilio plays Marley’s father Norval, and James Norton plays Island Records founder Chris Blackwell.
Michael Gandolfini, Nadine Marshall, and Anthony Welsh also star.
The film follows Marley to the point of his death in 1981, which came as a result of melanoma – an aggressive type of skin cancer. He was 36.
He had 11 children, three born to Rita, two adopted from Rita’s other relationships and several others from different women.
Bob Marley: One Love is scheduled for release on 12 January 2024 in the US.
