We've known about dueling Marvin Gaye biopics for two years now, but apparently there's a third. Variety reports of a film to be directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) and scripted by C. Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond) simply titled Marvin. It's possible, though, that this is the same film previously reported as D. Stevens' Marvin: The Life Story of Marvin Gaye, which was being written by Greg Guss and Robert Scharrer. The IMDb certainly thinks so.

Regardless of Gray's film's origins, his project still has a competitor in Sexual Healing, which will star Law & Order's Jesse L. Martin as Gaye and will co-star and be produced by James Gandolfini. There will be a difference between the two, at least. Sexual Healing only has access to Gaye's post-Motown music, so it will be focused on the singer's later years. Marvin, on the other hand, has finally secured the rights to Gaye's entire music catalog and will cover the man's life from beginning to end, when he was shot by his father in 1984.

As funny, or potentially scary, as it could be to see James Gandolfini in a sexy movie, especially if he gets to say: "When I get that feeling, I need sexual healing," this is just about the sexy, classic music. Just 5 days short of the two-year anniversary since Cinematical first blogged about the upcoming Marvin Gaye picture, one that had Law & Order's Jesse L. Martin attached as the music icon, word is finally picking up again. The Hollywood Reporter has posted that Gandolfini signed on as both co-star and producer of the the film, Sexual Healing, which is finally heading into production this April in Massachusetts, Belgium, and Los Angeles.

The feature focuses on Gaye's later years, and the ex-Soprano "will play Gaye's manager, Freddy Cousaert, the promoter who guided the singer through the recording of his biggest-selling album, 'Midnight Love.'" But it isn't all roses. As Karina said all those months ago, the film will cover Marvin's move to Europe, his drug addiction, his move home to live with his parents, a drug relapse, and then particularly sad demise -- he was shot and killed by his father one day before his 45th birthday. Yeah, this isn't going to be an upper, folks. Still, it's looking to be a pretty interesting film.

As Karina reported a few months ago, there's a Marvin Gaye biopic in the works. Unavoidably entitled Sexual Healing (What studio could pass up an excuse to use the word "sexual" in a title?), the movie stars Jesse L. Martin as Gaye, is being directed by Lauren Goodman, and is expected to focus on the singer's last years, a period that featured fun stuff like smack addiction and being shot by his dad. If that's not Oscar bait, I don't know what is.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, though, Martin isn't the only Gaye in town -- a second biopic, this one called Marvin -- The Life Story of Marvin Gaye (Gee, what could that be about?), is expected to go into production later this year. Details on the project are few, but the film is being written by Robert Scharrer, is budgeted at about $60 million (an amount that dwarfs that of the independent Sexual Healing) and, under the guidance of one Roberta Flack, will incorporate two dozen Gaye songs. Though the film's director, D. Stevens, has never helmed a feature before (he's been a still photographer for lots of productions), he nevertheless seems to have a fairly high profile, and will be taking part in a panel discussion at Cannes about the future of black cinema.

So the race is on -- until Stevens' picture gets a star, though, it's disappointingly impossible to pick sides.

They say it takes three to make a trend, and with Jamie Foxx, Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon successfully plumbing the biographies of Ray Charles, Johnny Cash and June Carter for Oscar gold, it should surprise no one if we find ourselves innundated with music biopics over the next couple of years. Next up: Sexual Healing, a look at the final years in the life of Marvin Gaye, in which the troubled soul singer moved to Europe, recovered from a nasty drug addiction, and then moved back to the US, moved in with his parents, and got back on the spike just in time to be shot to death by his father during an argument. Gaye will be played by Law and Order regular Jesse L. Martin, who last appeared on the big screen as an HIV-postive academic in Chris Columbus' abysmal feature version of Broadway's Rent. The film will be directed by Lauren Goodman, whose IMDb profile is a virtual ghost town. That said, Martin's a theater veteran with genuine musical talent; with the right script, this could very well rock.