Trailer
Plot summary
Freddie, born Farrokh Bulsara, lives with his parents and sister in London and hauls luggage at Heathrow for a living. At a club he watches Smile, a college band whose singer, Tim Staffell, is quitting. Freddie approaches guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor and sings for them, and they take him on as their frontman. John Deacon joins on bass, the group sells its van to pay for a record, and the band becomes Queen. Freddie is dating Mary Austin. Through the manager John Reid, who works with Elton John, Queen gets a television appearance that brings a first hit, "Killer Queen", and then an American tour. While making their next album, the band clashes with EMI executive Ray Foster over whether "Bohemian Rhapsody" can be a single.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Tom Hollander briefly quit Bohemian Rhapsody over issues with director Bryan Singer but was persuaded to return, and Singer was fired on 4 December 2017 with about two weeks of scheduled principal photography remaining.
- In July 2013, Sacha Baron Cohen left the planned Queen film over creative differences: he wanted a gritty R-rated tell-all about Mercury, while the band hoped for a PG-rated film.
- Rami Malek did intense sessions with a movement coach and learned to talk with prosthetic teeth made by artist Chris Lyons; he and his team also studied footage of Liza Minnelli, an inspiration for Mercury's stage moves.
- China censored three minutes of Bohemian Rhapsody, including scenes showing drugs and homosexuality, and cut part of Rami Malek's Oscar speech in which he called Freddie Mercury "a gay man, an immigrant."
- The Live Aid performance was filmed on a giant set at the former airfield RAF Bovingdon, where about a hundred extras were individually scanned 360° and digitally replicated to imitate a larger crowd.
- Freddie Mercury suspected he had HIV in 1983 but was not officially diagnosed until 1987, two years after Live Aid; Roger Taylor said the other band members were not told until early 1989.
- In November 2021, after screenwriter Anthony McCarten sued producer Graham King over lack of payments, it emerged that 20th Century Fox had written the film down as a $51 million loss, an act attributed to Hollywood accounting.
- After renewed sexual abuse allegations against director Bryan Singer, GLAAD withdrew Bohemian Rhapsody's nomination for its Outstanding Film - Wide Release award, and BAFTA removed Singer's name from the film's Best British Film nomination.
