Tennesia Malcolm, Gleaner Writer

( L - R ) Bob Marley, Rita Marley

'Bob raped me' screamed local headlines when Rita Marley's sensational memoir, No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley, hit stores four years ago.

Now, this controversy is poised to make the big screen. According to the website firstshowing.net, the Weinstein Company has optioned the rights to the book with hopes of releasing a film in late 2009.

If plans remain on schedule, then this film will hit theatres just months shy of a Martin Scorsese film on the life of Bob Marley. Scorsese's film is scheduled to grace theatres on February 6, 2010 on what would have been Marley's 65th birthday.

The Oscar-winning director has planned to include the same team with which he worked on Shine a Light, a documentary about rock legends The Rolling Stones.

Only one month after the announcement of Scorsese's project comes news that No Woman No Cry will be made into a movie. Coincidence? Maybe not. It has been alleged that a Marley film has had problems being approved by his widow. But not so with the latest attempt.

Hand-picked

A production and creative team have been named for No Woman No Cry. No word yet on a director or an actor to portray Bob, but Lauryn Hill will play Rita. No stranger to the big screen, the former Fugee appeared as a troubled teen alongside Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act. Hill was reportedly hand-picked by Rita for the role.

Hill is romantically linked to Bob's son Rohan for whom she has several children. "She sees my life as her life," the Marley matriarch is quoted as saying.

Rudy Langlais (The Hurricane) will produce No Woman No Cry with Rita acting as executive producer. Lizzie Borden of Working Girls fame is currently in Jamaica finishing up the script, according to firstshowing.net.

It is unlikely that one film will directly impact the other. Rita's film is based on her book, shedding light on her troubled relationship with Bob; from their teenage relationship through his rise to stardom and countless affairs.

That book, Rita says, "Is about a girl from the ghetto and a boy from the rural areas. It's more than just a story, it's reality."

A reality that provided a high-profile case study for the raging debate on marital rape, with many burning figurative fire for the late reggae king's widow.

Bob Marley died in Miami in May 1981, aged 36.

Scorsese's film will take a more generalised approach, telling the story of Marley's rise from struggling ghetto singer to superstardom.

Martin Scorsese is known as Hollywood royalty, with several Academy Award nominations under his belt. He took home the coveted statuette only last year for his work in The Departed, a token by the Academy, some say, for having overlooked his brilliance too many times. Anyone selected to take the director's chair on the preceding film would perhaps have to be of equal calibre.

Regardless of the outcome of the two films, there is one thing that cannot be altered. With last year's hit movie, I Am Legend, relying heavily on his music and message, it is safe to say that Marley's star has risen in filmdom.