I Shot the Sheriff, But I Didn't Shoot No Marley Doc

Never mind the big news that Martin Scorsese will be making the authorized Bob Marley documentary slated for a February 6, 2010 release -- which would have been the reggae superstar's 65th birthday. Scorsese, whose Rolling Stones concert doc, Shine a Light, is at the Franklin Institute, and who has committed to making a George Harrison doc, too, has bowed from the Bob doc because of scheduling conflicts. (Scorsese is in the throes of Shutter Island, from a Dennis Lehane novel, with Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Kingsley, Emily Mortimer and Michelle Williams, right now.)



Anyway, no Marty, no cry. Jonathan Demme has been picked to replace Scorsese on the Marley bio, and in many ways he's better suited for the project. Demme has a history of music pics, from the groundbreaking Talking Heads title, Stop Making Sense, to the Robyn Hitchcock concert pic Storefront Hitchcock to catching Neil Young in Heart of Gold. Demme, who is in the process of editing a new Neil Young concert film, has directed a bunch of music videos (Bruce Springsteen, New Order, The Pretenders) and has shown fine, and eclectic, musical tastes in the soundtracks to his fiction features.

"I am thrilled and humbled by this extraordinary opportunity to participate in fashioning a motion picture that can serve as a worthy vessel for the spiritual and musical brilliance of Bob Marley," Demme said in a statement.