by Howard Campbell
NEW YORK – Bob Marley: One Love, the Paramount Pictures biopic about the Jamaican reggae legend, has been nominated for Best Movie at this year’s BET Awards.
Directed by American Reinaldo Marcus Green, the film stars British actors Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley, and Lashana Lynch as his wife Rita. Since opening in February, it has grossed over $177 million at the global box office.
The BET Awards are scheduled for June 30 in Los Angeles.
Best Movie Nominations
Other films up for Best Movie are American Fiction, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, The Book of Clarence, The Color Purple, The Equalizer 3 and The Little Mermaid.
Like Bob Marley: One Love, there was considerable pre-release buzz around The Color Purple which is produced by Warner Bros. Pictures. Although it has a strong cast with Taraji P. Henson, Fantasia Barrino, Haile Bailey and Colman Domingo, it fared poorly at the box office.
Interestingly, Bob Marley never achieved a mass audience among African-Americans. Reaching out to that demographic was one of the objectives for his last American tour in 1980, which was canceled after he was diagnosed with cancer.
Bob Marley: One Love covers December, 1976 when Marley, Rita and members of his entourage were shot at his Kingston home while rehearsing for the Smile Jamaica Concert. It also looks at his time in London in 1977 when he recorded the Exodus album and his return to Jamaica for the One Love Peace Concert in April, 1978.
Marley died in May, 1981 at age 36.
