The chaotic eight-year odyssey of the Bohemian Rhapsody on screen

During its two hours and 15 minutes of operation, the sprawling rock-and-roll bio-drama Bohemian Rhapsody Freddie Mercury, virtuoso leader of the queen, libidinous, coke sniffer and champagne drinker, cleanses the life of one of rock's most debauched superstars. The film rated PG-13 – which arrives in theaters on Friday, with Mr. Robot Star Rami Malek plays the leading role – describes the rise of Mercury from London Heathrow's modest baggage handler to the height of pop celebrity, performing in front of a television audience of around two billion people during of the Live Aid charity concert of 1985.

En route to this ultimate achievement, spectators discover Farrokh Bulsara, born in Zanzibar and his sometimes controversial relationship with his conservative family, Indian Parsi. We see Freddie's marriage to his college darling (played by Lucy Boynton) – despite his obvious attraction to men – and more than a few. Behind the music-esque recreates recording sessions of the band's most famous songs. It is a collective effort, with Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy and Joseph Mazzello respectively representing the friends of the Queen Brian group, Roger Taylor and John Deacon. But the critical consensus has so far ransacked Rhapsody an informative biopic on artistic risks – a relatively chaste showcase of the representation of gay love, softened reenactments of the Mercury festivities in extremely orgiastic evenings; the faint exploration of loneliness and existential despair that drove the singer's more extreme behavior; and only a brief montage focused on Freddie's frequentation of Rough Trade nightclubs.

Stephen Frears was just one of the directors hired to direct a previous version of Queen's biopic – his version was simply called Freddie Mercury, Sacha Baron Cohen, controversial comedian and provocateur of the controversial comedy, would have been far from this playful and convivial version of Mercury's legacy. "Sacha wanted to make a very outrageous movie, which I imagine Freddie Mercury would have approved," Frears tells Vulture. "Scandalous in terms of homosexuality and outrageous in terms of endless nude scenes. Sacha loved all that.

Now, Bohemian Rhapsody arrives in the middle of a busy rewards season, with quite a bit of Oscar success for Malek's mysterious usurpation by Malek. However, after nearly a decade of reaching the screen, the film must overcome the meta-narrative that surrounds it, including many false starts, production lags and disruptions to casting, tone and color. plot of the film. A bunch of prestigious filmmakers came and went over the years, and the project jumped from studio to studio before things nearly broke off towards the end of the main shoot last winter, thanks to the Unexplained absenteeism of RhapsodyThe director credited Bryan Singer.

As producer Graham King says, "The reason it took so long is [Mercury] had a very complicated life, "he said during a question-and-answer session after Bohemian RhapsodyFox Films, earlier this month. And it's just balancing the story of someone's life and that of the group in a two-hour, fifteen-minute film. We felt as if, if we can get a theater film and cover more from history and give the public a fun way to look at his life, and how the end of his life was rewarding, and the balance of his sexuality, so I think we could have a movie to success. "

The first needle fell on the Bohemian Rhapsody saga of 2010, when screenwriter Peter Morgan (Frost / Nixon, Spy soldier tailor tailor, Netflix The crown) called King to inform him that he had started working on a biographical drama about Queen, recounting preparations for the group's Live Aid show in front of 72,000 people at the Wembley Arena in London. In turn, King – a prolific producer, winner of an Academy Award, originally from films such as World War z and Parties – met with band members May and Taylor and convinced them to sell their rights for life.

What happened next is the subject of an internal dispute. That year, Cohen – a superstar of comedy, but without dramatic experience at the time – was "announced" as having accepted the role of Mercury. But in a recent interview, King said that the comedian had never been technically called to publicly express his interest in the role.

The film was mounted at Sony the following year. A former studio director said the project had gained ground thanks to Cohen's commitment. "I'm not sure that Sacha was attached to the very beginning of Sony's involvement, but there has been a period in which [he] was supposed to play the main role and the studio and himself met the directors, "said the executive. "It was a Freddie biopic more than the band's story, although part of the structure deals with the highs and lows of the band, but still from Freddie's point of view."

With the support of Sony Co-President Amy Pascal, Cohen has sought respected directors, including King's speech Filmmakers Tom Hooper and David Fincher, before Frears was announced in the industry trades as a "favorite" to lead the biopic in 2012. But Frears soon realized that his star and the Queen members were on a collision course because of their fundamental disagreement over the plot of the film. May and Taylor approached the film with "a certain dose of caution" in order to preserve Mercury's legacy, while Cohen would have remained interested in a "critical narrative about the singer" (Mercury died as a result of AIDS). disease related to 45 years). "We could always say that there would be problems with the rest of the group," says Frears. "Because [Sacha] was so outrageous and they were not. They were much more conventional. "

But in 2013, the comedian left the project unexpectedly, later confirming that he was interested in describing Mercury's "extreme lifestyle." [of] debauchery. (Frears says he "got away a bit" after Cohen left.) In 2016, on Sirius XM's Howard Stern radio show, Cohen said it was a conversation with a member from Queen who had sent him packing. "[After] at my first meeting, I should never have gone on because one member of the group – I will not say who – said: "It's such a fantastic movie, because such an incredible thing happens in the middle of the film. " "What's going on in the middle of the movie?" Said Cohen. "There he goes, Freddie dies. I'm leaving, so wait a minute. What happens in the second half of the film? And he said, "Well, we see how the band continues to grow stronger. And I said, "Listen, no one is going to see a movie whose main role the character dies of AIDS and then you continue to see the band. "Cohen refused Vulture's requests to be interviewed for this story."

In response to this interview, Queen's guitarist, May, described Cohen as an "asshole" and said the band members had "decided that it was not fit for the role" (Taylor and May are renowned for be the executive music producers of the film and, what is crucial, control the licensing rights of Queen's music.) According to the former Sony executive, however, for the duration of the project at the studio from Culver City, no rough draft of the screenplay has been traced with the death of Mercury at the center of the picture. "I guess that may have been raised by the creative team and the surviving members of the group," said the executive, "but I've never read a structured script of this way."

Dexter Fletcher (Eddie the Eagle) was appointed to replace Frears and launched the British actor Ben Whishaw (Paddington, Spectrum) in the lead role. But after being bumped into King on his intention of filming an R-rated drama, Fletcher also abandoned the ship. In 2015, around the time that Sony's Pascal resigned from his position following the consequences of the North Korean computer hacking crisis, the project lost support at Sony and suddenly found himself orphaned.

King then met Malek for five hours in Los Angeles before the film reached any distribution agreement, and was finally persuaded that he had found his Freddie after the actor had sent him a video clip of his performance. character. From there, Malek convinced the producer to look for a dialect tutor and a moving coach, as well as a set of false teeth that turned out to be the key to making the character. (Fox refused to make Malek or King available to talk to Vulture.)

A year later, King introduced the project to Fox, who, at the time, was taking a step forward in musicals "events" with projects such as the Hugh Song and Dance Vehicle Jackman. The biggest showman. According to an industry source with a glimpse of several years Bohemian RhapsodyAs part of its development process, Fox maintains original agreements with a number of director-producers who have had great success at the studio. And given the complexity of adapting the equipment and the high cost of acquiring music rights to Queen's music (which had never been acquired at Sony), King and Fox executives felt confident to be able to give way to Bryan Singer, X Men The movies totaled more than $ 2.7 billion worldwide.

The main shooting started in London in 2017. The script of the film was attributed to him by Anthony McCarten, the screenwriter named The theory of everything and Darkest hour. (Morgan, the screenwriter when he was still at Sony, retains a "story-by-story" credit.) The first footage of the filmed production was the film's final culminating scene: Queen's Live Aid, which is widely regarded as the One of the biggest -roll performances in history. "It was a terrifying prospect to try to attend the most iconic concert of all time. But in this situation, you're swimming or swimming, "said Ben Hardy at Fox's Q & A session. "It made us together as a group. It was such an important thing in this film to capture this report, the amazing report that the band had, that family feeling. And I think that taking up this challenge so early has really forced us to work together in that direction. "

But in December, Singer – whose career was stubborn by long allegations of unprofessional behavior on the set, parties with minor boys and sexual assaults – was fired. Bohemian Rhapsody after being hit repeatedly at Malek during production (having thrown away electrical equipment during a dive crisis), then failing to report for work for long unexplained periods. Things have deteriorated so badly that the director of photography Newton Thomas Sigel would have been called to perform certain tasks of Singer. Fox justified the dismissal of the director with a stinging statement about his "unexpected downtime".

For his part, Singer attributed his absenteeism to unspecified health care problems and the need to care for a "seriously ill parent". Singer said in a statement, "but Fox did not allow me to do it because I had to temporarily put my health and that of my loved ones first. "

This discussion point was saved by King. "Brian has had a lot of things in his life," the producer told Fox. "He had a lot of family problems. His mother was very sick and he wanted to stop the movie. And the studio did not see him that way, he did not want a break so close to the end. He needed to leave the movie. "

Closing the loop after so many years of dysfunctional production and development, Fletcher – who recently completed production Rocketman, a musical biopic about Elton John, expected to be released next year – was brought back to complete Rhapsody later this month. "I went into the last weeks of the main photography, editing, and that sort of thing," said the director at Indiewire in May. "So I was lucky to have a very good contribution, but it's really about looking at what has already been created and being part of this. It was not like changing and reinventing the wheel. "

So, was it worth all that hell and studio development had to offer Bohemian Rhapsody Galileo on the screen? King publicly admitted that he could not believe that the film had finally managed to materialize. And although RhapsodyOverall excellence may be in question, Malek may well be trying to win an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. "Put Rami Malek on top of the list of the best movies of 2018," wrote Rolling stonePeter Travers. "Watching Bohemian Rhapsodywe always feel like Freddie Mercury is standing in front of us, "said Owen Gleiberman in Variety.

Malek says his biggest challenge was finding humanity in someone he considered a "deity" while doing good to the surviving members of Queen. "When I had that role, I thought," Oh my God, this could be a defining performance for the career. "About two minutes later, I thought:" This could be a career killer! "Said the actor in Las Vegas. CinemaCon where the first images of Bohemian Rhapsody was unveiled publicly in April. "I would like to think that I gave a good performance. I leave you to decide. But Brian May sent me an email after seeing the movie and said how moved he was to tears. "If Freddie were here today, he could not be more proud of what you could achieve." That's what I'm going to take to my grave. "