In what might just be a propitious turn of events, Martin Scorsese has dropped out of what was intended to be his next film--a documentary about Bob Marley that he was working on with Steve Bing's Shangri-La Entertainment and Fortissimo Films, the same team with whom he made the Rolling Stones concert movie Shine a Light--and Jonathan Demme has stepped in. The movie, which everyone wants finished for a release date of February 6, 2010--the late, Jamaican reggae legend's 65th birthday--would have been Scorsese's fourth music documentary of this decade, counting the Bob Dylan film No Direction Home and Scorsese's episode of the PBS series The Blues. (It also would have taken him out of his comfort zone of music and musicians associated with the 1960s, unlike another project that's still reportedly on his plate, a documentary about George Harrison.)
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