20 facts you might not know about 'Bohemian Rhapsody'

A movie about Queen was first announced by Brian May in 2010. At the time, Sacha Baron Cohen was already lined up to play Mercury. However, do note that we said a movie about “Queen,” not a movie about Freddie Mercury. Since the surviving band members and their manager had the rights to the story, and the music, they had to sign off on everything. That’s where problems began.

In 2013, Cohen dropped out of the film. The rumors always were that Cohen wanted to make an R-rated, honest telling of the life of Mercury, while the band members wanted a PG story that was more sanitized, and also more about the band. May and Roger Taylor said that Cohen left on good terms, and both sides just spoke of creative and artistic disagreements.

After Cohen left the project, the producers continued working on getting the film off the ground. Ben Whishaw was attached to play Mercury, while Dexter Fletcher was tapped to direct. Fletcher only lasted about a year on the project before leaving, reportedly due to arguments with producer Graham King. Whishaw also had problems with the script and left as well.

The producers saw Malek on “Mr. Robot,” his breakout show, and wanted him to play Mercury. First, he needed to prove himself. Malek went to Abbey Road Studios to record himself singing. Those performances were then sent to the surviving members of Queen for them to sign off on. Malek got the green light.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” isn’t necessarily a film loaded with big names in the cast, with arguably the members of Queen being more famous than any of the actors. That being said, you might recognize Joe Mazzello, who plays John Deacon, the bass player. Then again, maybe you wouldn’t, because he looked a bit different at his most famous. As a kid, Mazzello played Tim in “Jurassic Park.”

A few different actresses were considered to play Mary Austin, Freddie Mercury’s longtime friend and one-time fiancée. Among the women considered including Maria Bello and Bryce Dallas Howard. Ultimately, though, Lucy Boynton got the role.

John Deacon and Brian May both had their kids make uncredited cameos in the film. Additionally, Adam Lambert has an uncredited cameo as a guy at a truck stop. The former “American Idol” contestant became the lead singer of Queen after the band reunited, which is why he got his role.

Fortunately, there are some very dedicated music fans out there. Take, for example, Queen archivist Greg Brooks. He worked extensively with the production in order to help ensure everything looked as accurate as possible. Brooks basically worked every day of the production, fielding questions to bring the scenes to life.

The film culminates with Queen’s performance at Live Aid. To replicate that, the production created a giant set at an airfield in England. They didn’t fill the audience entirely with extras, though. Instead, they hired roughly 100 extras, scanned them, and then digitally replicated them over and over to make the crowd look larger.

Queen has a ton of hit songs, but they couldn’t all make the cut. That includes songs from the Live Aid performance. They shot performances of “We Will Rock You” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” but they both missed the final cut.

While Malek sort of looks like Mercury, they went the extra mile. An artist named Chris Lyons created a set of prosthetic teeth for Malek to wear for his performance. That led to Malek having to spend a lot of time figuring out how to talk with the teeth in his mouth.

Malek went all in to play Mercury. He took singing lessons, piano lessons, and worked with an accent coach. All of that is not surprising, but Malek also spent a lot of time working with a movement coach. He put a ton of effort into trying to replicate Mercury’s moments. That actually included watching footage of Liza Minnelli,  as Mercury had copied some of his moves from her.

After all the singing lessons, Malek sang some parts of songs. How much singing he did we do not know, but it definitely wasn’t all of it, and it sounds like it wasn’t even most of it. They used vocals from Queen recordings some of the time, and other times singer Marc Martel – who had won at the Queen Live Extravaganza Tour auditions – served as Malek’s stand in.

There are a litany of negative things that could be said about director Bryan Singer, but let’s stick to the filming experience of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” In December of 2017, production had to be halted because Singer had disappeared. He didn’t show up after Thanksgiving weekend and nobody knew where he was. Singer then said he had an illness in his family and wanted a filming hiatus. However, there were reports that the cast and crew were tired of Singer, that he had been hard to work with and had been disappearing. Actor Tom Hollander even reportedly quit because of Singer, before being convinced to return. With about two weeks of filming left, Singer was fired.

Remember Dexter Fletcher? After Singer was fired, Fletcher was hired back on. He said that the film was roughly two-thirds done by this time. Fletcher began filming on December 15, 2017 and filming wrapped January 30, 2018.

With screenwriters and the Writers Guild of America, multiple writers can be credited on a project. Sometimes these decisions are handled by arbitrators. The Directors Guild is a little more stringent. Only one director can be listed for any film, and the DGA has the sole discretion of who that is. Since Singer had hired the cast and crew and filmed most of the movie, he is the sole director credited on “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Fletcher is listed as an executive producer.

Screenwriter Anthony McCarten noted, “We’re making a movie here, not a documentary” when talking about accuracy in “Bohemian Rhapsody.” That’s a fair point to make, but the movie is apparently pretty solid on that front. The blog “Information is Beautiful” went all in on assessing the accuracy of the film. Their research led to them saying the movie is “79.9 percent” accurate. Primarily, the movie really compresses the timeline of certain things happening.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” was a massive success at the box office. It made $216.7 million in the United States and Canada and a whopping $911.1 million worldwide. It’s the highest-grossing musical and the highest-grossing biopic of all time. Nevertheless, 20th Century Fox partook in some of that classic “Hollywood accounting” with the movie. In 2021 McCarten sued producer Graham King due to a lack of payments. This lawsuit opened up the books and revealed that Fox was claiming that the film – which was made on a budget of $52 million – lost them $51 million.

The film was nominated for five Oscars, winning all of them save for Best Picture. That includes Malek winning for Best Actor. There were some complaints about that, given that Malek only did some of the singing in the film. Nevertheless, the Oscar is forever his.

In 2021, May said that some idea for a sequel were being bandied about. However, he also said that they would have to top this movie and it could take years before it happen. Remember that it took them almost a decade to get “Bohemian Rhapsody” made, and also the fact it seems like May wants a film that focuses on Queen after Mercury’s death. We’re not holding our breath for a sequel.