The troubled production of Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody has taken another turn, hopefully this time for the better. Following Bryan Singer's firing, Eddie The Eagle director Dexter Fletcher is taking over behind the camera.
Charting the birth and huge rise of Queen to rock superstardom, the film will take the band to the heights of their show-stopping appearance at Live Aid in 1985, with Mr. Robot's Rami Malek playing front man Mercury. And it features the involvement of fellow Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, looking to keep the story authentic and the tunes right. They'll also be represented on screen too, with Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello and Gwilym Lee as Taylor, John Deacon and May respectively.
Singer had been absent from the set more than once, and 20th Century Fox finally took the step of terminating his involvement in the movie after he failed to return following the Thanksgiving break. For his part, Singer retorted that he'd been dealing with a sick parent. There had also been reports of clashes between the director and more than one cast member.
Now, with Fletcher at the helm, all involved will be hoping that the film can wrap up the roughly two weeks of shooting left and still make its planned 25 December 2018 release date in the States (with UK audiences seeing it on 28 December). The interesting wrinkle now will be whose name appears in the director's credit...
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