The Marvin Gaye movie without any Motown songs now has a home. Focus Features has bought the rights to “Sexual Healing,” starring Jesse L. Martin as the late great singer. Here’s the deal: this is a movie that will have zero, zilch, none– no Motown songs. There won’t be any Tammi Terrell duets or “What’s Going On” or “Stubborn Kind of Fellow.” No “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You).”
This movie will have Gaye’s 1982 hit, “Sexual Healing” and could include several unremembered songs from that album and the one that followed on Columbia Records. The filmmakers have no rights to Gaye’s huge Motown catalog. The could show Gaye as a young man singing standards. But really what they’re interested in his drug addiction in the early 80s and his death at his father’s hand on April 1, 1984.
Gaye’s family and Motown object to the film. I’m not sure what audience there is for it anyway. My guess this will end much like “Soul Men” did for Malcolm Lee–badly. Focus is bringing “Sexual Healing” to the market in Cannes for foreign sales. But I wonder how popular it will be when the buyers realize that the film has none of those magical Motown hits…
