Caffeinated Clint
According to my old mate Josh at Cinema Blend, it was Sacha Baron Cohen’s idea to bring Freddie Mercury’s story to the big screen.
Writer Peter Morgan (“Frost/Nixon”) tells the site, “Sacha was the one who asked me to write it. He was the guy who rang me up.”
The movie, says Morgan, will focus largely on Mercury’s musical career as opposed to re-chronicling those painful last days in the life of the ‘Princes of the Universe’ singer.
“I didn’t want to write an AIDS movie, to be honest with you. And then, I just looked the period– It’s sort of where he rejects [the other members of Queen] and comes back to them. It’s sort of like a family movie. It’s sort of like I hate my family, I want to be independent, and then I come back.”
Having said that, Morgan says there will be some heavygoing stuff in the movie – stuff that the surviving members of Queen mightn’t be too pleased about having up there on the big screen.
“I’m not sure how much they’ll like what I write. I think they’ll recognize the truth in it, but it’s a series of painful memories for them. I’m essentially writing about the most painful time in the band’s history.”
Morgan is referring to the band touring South Africa at the time of the apartheid era.
As a performer, Mercury was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range. As a songwriter, Mercury composed many hits for Queen, including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “We Are the Champions”. In addition to his work with Queen, he led a solo career, penning hits such as “Barcelona”, “I Was Born to Love You” and “Living on My Own”. He died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on 24 November 1991, only one day after publicly acknowledging he had the disease.
Film wise, Queen contributed to quite a few film soundtracks including “Iron Eagle” and most famously, “Highlander”.
