'Who Shot the Sheriff?' - Bob Marley's assassination attempt to be investigated in Netflix docu-series
Published:Thursday | September 27, 2018 | 12:00 AMKimberley Small/Gleaner Writer
Reggae legend Bob Marley will be the subject of an upcoming Netflix docu-series, investigating some of music's biggest unsolved mysteries. The eight-episode project, called ReMastered, will be available on the streaming service on October 12, with one new episode every month through to May 2019.
The docu-series will open with Who Shot The Sheriff?, a look at the role Jamaican politicians and the CIA played in the attempted assassination of Marley, following the 1972 election won by the Michael Manley-led People's National Party.
In November, Harlan County USA documentarian Barbara Kopple will co-direct an examination into Johnny Cash's tumultuous White House meeting with Richard Nixon in Tricky Dick and the Man in Black. The year will close out with an episode focusing on Who Killed Jam Master Jay?, the Run-DMC DJ who was killed in a Queens, New York studio in 2002.
Other investigations to be highlighted include a look into the murder of three members of the Miami Showband during "the Troubles" in Ireland in 1975, the death of Chilean singer Victor Jara, and the mysterious shooting death of Sam Cooke.
ReMastered was created by Emmy and Peabody Award-winning brothers Jeff and Michael Zimbalist. Irving Azoff and Stu Schreiberg are listed among its executive producers.
BLACKWELL & NETFLIX
This is not the first time the major television streaming service has had its spotlight on Jamaica. Earlier this year, the second season of Marvel's Luke Cage was released on the platform. The series' antagonist was decidedly Jamaican, which necessitated heavy use of a trying island accent. An episode was also filmed in the island.
Last month, the platform released a Netflix original film called Like Father, starring Kristen Bell, Kelsey Grammar and Seth Rogen, with the film's crew moving between New York, a Royal Caribbean cruise liner and Jamaica's north coast to complete the production.
In June 2017, Variety.com reported that Island Records founder Chris Blackwell had partnered with Narcos show-runner, Eric Newman, to develop a narrative series about the birth of reggae music and the rise of Jamaica's music industry.
It was announced that Sascha Penn, an alum of the Starz drama Power, would pen the pilot script. The still-untitled project will be executive-produced by Blackwell and Newman, along with Studiocanal Chairman and CEO Didier Lupfer, Propagate Content's Ben Silverman, and Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize-winning novel A Brief History of Seven Killings.