On the big screen

Now, Deadline reports that the Oscar-nominated scribe behind “The Theory of Everything”, Anthony McCarten, is taking a crack at the screenplay.

A biopic on Queen’s frontman Freddie Mercury may finally get to the big screen, Deadline wrote today. Both are executive producers on the project. And there’s already a story to adapt; Frost/Nixon writer Peter Morgan wrote a draft of the film back when Baron Cohen was attached. A new director is yet to be announced.

He and the surviving members of Queen parted ways in 2013 when they reportedly couldn’t agree on the film’s tone, and a few months after that, Ben Whishaw was named the new favorite for the role.

The original plan was for Sacha Baron Cohen to play Farrokh Bulsara, better known as Freddie Mercury, however the actor / comedian ditched the project a couple of years ago and the whole thing’s stalled since then. What led us to that conclusion was the last three movies that he’s made – The Dictator, Les Miserables and Hugo – in which he makes outstanding performances, but they’re very much Sacha Baron Cohen performances. “We thought there has to be no distraction in the Freddie movie”. You have to really suspend that disbelief – the man who plays Freddie, you have to really believe it’s Freddie. “And we didn’t that could really happen with Sacha”.