Weinstein Company plans Bob Marley biopic

The Weinstein Company has bought the film rights to No Woman No Cry: My Life With Bob Marley, Rita Marley's account of her life with reggae star Bob Marley.

The film will chart the couple's turbulent relationship, which encompassed several affairs and separations, the birth of their four children (Marley is rumoured to have fathered 22 in all) and an assassination attempt in 1976.

The singer died of cancer in 1981 at the age of 36 and, in the book, Rita Marley attempts to set the record straight regarding their relationship.

"This is about a girl from the ghetto and a boy from the rural areas," Marley told Variety. "It's more than being a superstar - we have trod the rocky roads. It's more than just a story, it's a reality."

Warner Bros previously attempted to get a Bob Marley film - based on Timothy White's book Catch a Fire - off the ground in the late '90s with Marley's son Rohan and his partner Lauryn Hill in line to play Bob and Rita.

It was recently announced that Martin Scorsese would direct a documentary about the Jamaican singer and release it on February 6, 2010 to mark what would have been Marley's 65th birthday.

The Weinstein Company film is being targeted for a 2009 release.