When Bohemian Rhapsody first hit cinemas in late 2018, the Queen biopic was met with a green splat on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the Freddie Mercury movie went on to defy the critics by making over $900 million worldwide and winning more Oscars than any other movie in 2019. This included a Best Actor win for Rami Malek in the starring role.
Of course, Freddie himself died over 30 years ago, so what would he have made of the film focused on his life and career? After all, amid all his great successes and incredible performances, there were tough private life moments.
On top of this, Sacha Baron Cohen had originally been attached to star in Bohemian Rhapsody but left over creative differences having wanted to explore the more debauched areas of the singer’s indulgences.
In a previous interview, Brian May told Classic Rock what he thought the late star would have made of the final product.
Asked if Freddie would have approved of and liked Bohemian Rhapsody, Brian said: “I do. I think he would have felt it was a fair cop, really. It shows all his greatness and all his fallibility and insecurity – the whole bit. I think it shows him very truthfully and not sycophantically, but in a way that appreciates his talent. Because he was sure was unique. I’ve never met anybody like Freddie in my life, before or since, and it’s probably not going to happen again.”
The Queen guitarist also shared why he didn’t think that the singer could have made a good film star.
READ MORE: Bohemian Rhapsody: Freddie Mercury sister’s ‘bizarre’ reaction to Rami
On satisfying Queen fans, Brian said at the time: “Yeah, I think it will. It satisfies us. It makes us feel something. There’s a lot of incredible detail. All our technical people were involved, so if you look around at the guitars and amps you see on stage at Live Aid, you’ll see they’re pretty damn perfect and correct. And the guys who built the Live Aid set itself [for the film] were the guys who built the original. Of course, there’ll always be things you can find fault with. There is no such thing as a perfect film, and Queen fans will understand when they see it that certain things have been moved around for the story to make sense. You can’t collapse forty years of a person’s life into two and a half hours without cutting out a lot of stuff.”
Bohemian Rhapsody is streaming on Netflix, Disney+ and All 4.
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