Monday, June 22, 2026

Today’s Marvin Gaye Movie Announcement Was Made Six Years Ago, Thanks

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I’m sorry. Fool me once… Today, as happens biannually, someone announced that Jesse L. Martin would play Marvin Gaye in a movie called “Sexual Healing.” However, just to explain the b-s that goes on in ScoopVille, that same announcement was made on February 2, 2006. Here  it is: http://www.upi.com/Entertainment_News/2006/02/06/Jesse-L-Martin-to-portray-Marvin-Gaye/UPI-30311139263622/

Fact is, I’ve written about this never going to happen, can’t be made, shouldn’t be made film for years, too. The producers only have the rights to Gaye’s music from 1982-1984, when he was on Columbia Records. There will be NO Motown recordings in this film. Got that? The movie is designed to cover only the last, and saddest part, of Marvin’s extraordinary career.

There will be nothing about his rise to fame at Motown, his duets with Tammi Terrell, his crazy marriage to Anna Gordy, or his brilliant moment of artistic achievement with “What’s Going On.” It will just be about Marvin taking drugs, losing his mind, and being shot to death by his father.

No one wants to see that, trust me.

But also: this business of constantly releasing the same “leaks” about a movie that won’t be made. It’s tiresome.

This “scoop” was also discussed in 2011 by Martin, who said making the movie was “impossible.” He was right. http://www.eurweb.com/2011/04/jesse-l-martin-less-optimistic-about-his-marvin-gaye-biopic/

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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