Marvin Gaye Biopic in the Works

F Gary Gray (Friday, The Italian Job) will direct “Marvin,” a biopic of Marvin Gaye, the iconic singer who was shot to death by his father in 1984. C Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond) is aboard to write the script.

David Foster will produce with Duncan McGillivray, and next week they will shop to studios and financiers a package that includes the complete music rights to Gaye’s catalog, including the hits that made him Motown’s biggest solo male star.

Those tunes include “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “What’s Goin’ On” and “Let’s Get It On.” Plan is to have the star of the film lip synch to Gaye’s recordings.

Gray has long wanted to tell Gaye’s story, but the inability to secure music rights has made it a high mountain to climb. A rival pic, “Sexual Healing,” produced by James Gandolfini, who has a role, and starring Jesse L. Martin, will focus on the singer’s declining years, because the filmmakers have rights to use songs only from his post-Motown career. That film, reportedly scheduled to start last month in Europe, has not begun production.

Gray said his movie will cover Gaye’s entire life, from his emergence at Motown through his defiance of Berry Gordy to record “What’s Goin’ On” and on up to his death.

“This is my passion project, the one that I wake up every day thinking about,” Gray told Variety. “I’m going to tell a truthful story, and there is no shortage of drama and extreme conflict in a relationship with his father that at its core is Shakespearean and tragic. This isn’t the average biopic of a rock star wrestling with drugs and women, but a man whose musical awakening became a call to action that questioned critical issues like a costly foreign war, recession, environment, inequality — issues that are relevant now.“