(Updated 01/22/2024)
For anyone who was even kind of a fan, Bob Marley is legendary. He's one of the most significant recording artists in the world. His songs are pure evocations of spirit and joy that are accessible to all. His cancer-related death at age 36 only made audiences want to hear more of Marley's music. Three years later, the posthumous compilation album "Legend" was released; today it is one of the best-selling albums of all time.
All of which to say is that making a dramatic movie about Marley's life is a difficult task. His voice and presence are so well known that it seems like no actor could possibly live up to expectations.
So we're happy to see that BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE has found just the right actor to play Marley on screen. Check out the new trailer below and learn a lot more about BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE.
What's the Bob Marley: One Love Release Date?
Paramount Pictures will release BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE on February 14.
Watch the New Trailer for Bob Marley: One Love
That's a powerful trailer! Obviously, it is driven by music, but we also get to see the strength of Kingley Ben-Adir's performance as Bob Marley. For the longest time it seemed like finding someone to convey the singer's spirit would be an impossible task, but that's obviously not the case!
Bob Marley: One Love Will Not Shy Away From Tough Parts of the Story
There's so much to cover in any one person's story. When the figure in question is an almost-mythic musician such as Bob Marley, events in his life are only the beginning. There's the music, and the force that drove it, and the ways in which songs grew and affected audiences once out in the world.
Director Reinaldo Marcus Green has written that "Bob was thirty-six when he died, and although he accomplished much in his short life, he grew up dirt poor, estranged from his father, in an area of St Anne’s that nobody comes out of with much success. So, how do you go from a beginning like that to becoming one of the greatest living musicians of all time?"
Marley, of course, was not a saintly figure. That will be represented in the movie, too. "Like all of us," Green says, "Bob had his indiscretions and transgressions, and we’re looking to present a balanced version of them for this film."
Marley's son Ziggy Marley, a producer on the movie, has said that, for audiences, he hopes the movie will "inspire them to know that greatness is not something that comes without fault or comes with perfection. Nobody’s perfect. And so the inspiration of a story like that is that this great man who everybody loves is imperfect also. That inspires us as human beings that we can do great things too with our imperfections."
Does Bob Marley: One Love Use Marley's Original Music?
The movie does feature Bob Marley's music, as the trailer highlights. Having rights to Marley's original songs was a key part of director Reinaldo Marcus Green agreeing to do the movie in the first place.
"The first thing I asked the producers was whether they had the rights to his music," the director has explained. "When they confirmed this, I said, “It doesn’t matter what state the script is in at this point—because the music tells his story.”"
Does Kingsley Ben-Adir Sing in Bob Marley: One Love?
Kingsley Ben-Adir does sing Bob Marley's songs in ONE LOVE. But the final mix is a bit more complicated than that. What you'll hear is some of Ben-Adir's voice, some of Marley's son Ziggy Marley, and other voices as well.
Director Reinaldo Marcus Green told Rolling Stone, "Kingsley performed everything that you see in the movie. So he goes fully in, we have him performing everything, but in order to make the voice one it’s a mixture of Ziggy and Steven [Marley] and the family. So we have real Bob recordings, we have Steven, we have Ziggy, to make it one universal voice in the film.
Bob Marley: One Love Filmed in Jamaica
Bob Marley's music was deeply rooted in Jamaica, and to capture the essence of his life, the production filmed on the island. "[It] was critical to our story that we were going to be casting real Jamaicans, shooting in Jamaica, we were going to be on the streets in Trench Town," Green has said. "We were going to be going to the places that Bob lived and was from, and we made sure that we did that. I think that was critical from the very beginning. I think that adds a layer of authenticity to the filmmaking process so that you feel that you are on the journey."
The Cast and Crew of Bob Marley: One Love
We've mentioned director Reinaldo Marcus Green, whose most recent movie was the Oscar-winning KING RICHARD, starring Will Smith. Here, he re-teams with that movie's cinematographer, Robert Elswit, who already has a long-running partnership with filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. (Eslwit shot movies like THERE WILL BE BLOOD, MAGNOLIA, and INHERENT VICE.)
We've also mentioned Kingsley Ben-Adir, most recently seen as one of the Kens in BARBIE. Green told Rolling Stone that "We were looking for someone… that can provide us with the things that we don’t typically understand about Bob. He’s an incredible actor. He has incredible range and depth."
Alongside the star, ONE LOVE also features Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley, Jesse Cilio as Norval Marley, and James Norton as Chris Blackwell. Michael Gandolfini, Nadine Marshall, and Anthony Welsh are in the cast as well.
BOB MARLEY: ONE LOVE opens on February 14.
All images courtesy of Paramount Pictures.