Bob Marley: One Love is in cinemas. The Paramount Pictures biopic opens in the United States and the United Kingdom on Wednesday, February 14, 2024, after a world premiere in Marley’s home city at the Carib 5 in Cross Roads, Kingston, on January 23.
Directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (King Richard), the film stars British actor Kingsley Ben-Adir as Marley, Lashana Lynch as Rita Marley and James Norton as Island Records founder Chris Blackwell. The screenplay is by Terence Winter, Frank E. Flowers, Zach Baylin and Green. Ziggy Marley, Rita Marley and Cedella Marley are among the producers, with Plan B Entertainment, State Street Pictures and Tuff Gong Pictures behind it. Kris Bowers composed the score.
1976 to 1978
Rather than a cradle-to-grave account, the film covers a narrow, decisive window: the December 1976 shooting at 56 Hope Road ahead of the Smile Jamaica concert, the exile in London where the Wailers made Exodus, the cancer diagnosis, and the return home for the One Love Peace Concert in April 1978, where Marley joined the hands of Michael Manley and Edward Seaga on stage. Dialogue moves between English and Jamaican Patois.
Filming ran from December 2022 to April 2023 in London and across Jamaica, including Kingston, Trench Town, Norman Manley International Airport, Bull Bay and Cane River Falls.
Jamaican musicians on screen
The Wailers and their circle are played largely by working Jamaican artists. Sevana is Judy Mowatt and Naomi Cowan is Marcia Griffiths; Alexx A-Game plays Peter Tosh and Abijah “Naki Wailer” Livingston plays Bunny Wailer. Aston Barrett Jr portrays his father, bassist Aston “Family Man” Barrett, who died on February 3. Hector Roots Lewis is drummer Carlton Barrett, Tosin Cole is keyboardist Tyrone Downie, David Kerr is Junior Marvin and Sheldon Shepherd is art director Neville Garrick.
The music
A companion EP, Bob Marley: One Love — Music Inspired by the Film, is released the same day by Island Records and Tuff Gong. Kacey Musgraves’ cover of “Three Little Birds,” released January 26, was the first taste. Billboard notes Marley’s catalogue has passed seven billion on-demand streams in the United States, and that Legend is the second-longest-charting album in Billboard 200 history at 821 weeks.
Update, February 18: a record opening
Billboard, citing early estimates from The Hollywood Reporter, reports a six-day domestic opening of about $46 million, including roughly $28 million over the three-day weekend. The $14 million taken on Wednesday from 3,536 theatres is the biggest midweek Valentine’s Day opening on record, according to the studio, and audiences gave the film an “A” CinemaScore. Critics have been cooler — several reviews call it a conventional biopic carried by its lead and its soundtrack — but the numbers put One Love among the strongest openings for a music biopic.
Listen and dig deeper
- Browse Bob Marley and Bob Marley & the Wailers in the JamaicansMusic library, along with Rita Marley, Judy Mowatt and Marcia Griffiths — the I-Threes.
- Profiles of the cast’s musicians: Sevana, Naomi Cowan and Alexx A-Game.
Sources: Paramount Pictures — Bob Marley: One Love; Billboard — “‘Bob Marley: One Love’ Heading to $46M Opening at the Box Office” (Feb 17, 2024); Wikipedia — Bob Marley: One Love (cast, production and release details, with citations to Deadline, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter).
Editor’s note: This story is part of an archive backfill covering Jamaican music news from 2022 to 2026. It is dated to the events it reports.