The Crazy Reason Sacha Baron Cohen Quit Freddie Mercury Biopic
Sacha Baron Cohen’s turn as legendary Queen frontman Freddie Mercury will now never happen.
And as sad as that is – can’t help but think it could have really worked – perhaps it was all for the best.
The star of ‘Grimsby’ hit Howard Stern’s radio show in the US yesterday, and explained why he decided to pull out.
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“There are amazing stories about Freddie Mercury. The guy was wild. He was living an extreme lifestyle [of] debauchery,” said Cohen.
“The problem is - and I think it’s with any biopic, and I fully understand why Queen wanted to do this - if you’re in control of your rights and your life story, why wouldn’t you depict yourself as great as possible?
“It [becomes] a less interesting movie, but you’ve got to remember that they want to protect their legacy as a band, and they want it to be about Queen. And I fully understand that.”
He then goes on to the juicy stuff, and why he should have seen the signs earlier that it was potentially a doomed project.
“[After] my first meeting, I should never have carried on because a member of the band - I won’t say who - said, ‘This is such a great movie, because such an amazing thing happens in the middle of the movie’,” he continues.
“I go, ‘What happens in the middle of the movie?’ He goes, ‘Freddie dies.’ I go, ‘So you mean it’s a bit like 'Pulp Fiction’, where the end is the middle and the middle is the end?
“He goes, ‘No no no.’ So I said, ‘Wait a minute. What happens in the second half of the movie?’ And he said, ‘Well, we see how the band carries on from strength to strength.’
“And I said, ‘Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS and then you carry on to see [what happens to the band].”
He added that there were internal disagreements within the band too, over how the story should be played out, and that a PG-rated take on events was looking increasingly likely.
Cohen even teased further potential for the project, now dashed, having asked 'Frost/Nixon’s Peter Morgan to write the script, and both David Fincher and Tom Hooper in the frame as possible directors.
Now that would have been a Queen movie worth making…
Image credits: Getty/Rex Features