Competition Ensues for Marvin Gaye Biopic

Variety is currently reporting that another Marvin Gaye biopic, titled Marvin, is in initial stages of pre-production. It is set to be directed by F. Gary Gray (Be Cool, The Italian Job) with a script penned by Blood Diamond screenwriter C. Gaby Mitchell.

Unlike the prince of Motown's other biopic also in the works, Sexual Healing (starring Jesse L. Martin), which tells of Gaye's post Motown career, Marvin will tell of his rise as a Motown star, his defiance of Berry Gordy with the controversial "What's Goin' On," and his tragic death in 1984.

The film's producers, David Foster and Duncan McGillivray, are reportedly shopping the film to various studios and confirm that they do have the rights to Marvin Gaye greats including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," "Heard It Through the Grapevine," and "Let's Get It On." After previous efforts, comments director Gray, the project has been on hold for reasons of music rights. Sexual Healing is set to release in 2010 while Marvin is hoping to have a quicker release sometime in 2009.

Producer McGillivray comments, "My mantra was, no music, no movie, but to me, the core story is a man who spent his whole life trying to justify and prove himself to a father who beat him down physically and later mentally. . . . His father was a cross-dressing, alcoholic Baptist minister who was let off the hook for shooting his son."

Marvin Gaye was an American singer-songwriter and instrumentalist who became a prominent figure in the Motown movement of the 1960s, earning him the title of "Prince of Soul." Notable for fighting the hit-making but restrictive Motown process in which performers and songwriters and producers were kept separate, Marvin Gaye died at the hands of his father from a gunshot wound on April 1, 1984.