Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

[EricSchulz]

Title: Bohemian Rhapsody

Tagline: Fearless Lives Forever

Genre: Drama, Music

Director: Bryan Singer

Cast: Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Joseph Mazzello, Aidan Gillen, Tom Hollander, Mike Myers, Allen Leech, Aaron McCusker, Dermot Murphy, Meneka Das, Ace Bhatti, Dickie Beau, Neil Fox-Roberts, Philip Andrew, Matthew Houston, Michelle Duncan, Max Bennett, Adam Rauf, Scott Morrison Watson, Devlin Lloyd, Garry Summers, Matthew Fredricks, Stefan Kopiecki, Pat Lally, Ian Jareth Williamson, Johanna Thea, Adam Lazarus

Release: 2018-10-24

Plot: Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs like "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Are the Champions" and "We Will Rock You" become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.

The first REAL trailer is up. Given all the problems with the production so far, this has me SO STOKED!!!! The clips in this trailer look amazing!!!

 

[Sam Posten]

I always wondered what happened after this:

"A member of the band, I won't say who, he said, 'This is such a great movie because it's got such an amazing thing that happens in the middle of the movie,'" Cohen told Howard Stern Show in March. "I go, 'What happens in the middle of the movie?' He goes, 'Freddie dies,'" with the remainder of the film focusing on Queen's resiliency following Mercury's death in 1991.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...cha-baron-cohens-queen-biopic-claims-20160410

Good to see it's finally coming out.

 

[TravisR]

Rami Malek is fantastic on Mr. Robot and everything else I've seen him in so I expect him to nail it as Mercury too.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I don't know if there's ever been a situation before where a director gets fired during pre-production, his replacement gets fired two-thirds of the way through prinicipal photography, and the the original director gets hired back to finish principal photography and oversee post-production. From what I understand, the DGA still hasn't determined who's going to get the director's credit on the movie.

Based on interviews with Dexter Fletcher, it sounds like he originally left the picture because of conflicts with producer Graham King. After all of the weird shit went down with Bryan Singer, it was actually a pretty smooth process when he jumped back in because a) he was happy with how the parts of the movie already shot by Singer had turned out, and b) 20th Century Fox was so desperate to just get the movie completed at that point that they left him alone and let him make the movie the wanted to make.

 

[Josh Dial]

From what I understand, the DGA still hasn't determined who's going to get the director's credit on the movie.

Tommy Schlamme should make the directors compete in a walk-and-talk-off to determine who wins the credit

 

[Sam Posten]

Starting to see some backlash building on twitter. Apparently early reports are that the film doesn't really address the AIDS epidemic in a meaningful way. Not sure how that can be determined with the finished version so far away, but there ya go...
http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/br...-trailer-freddie-mercury-gay-aids-1201965009/

 

[TravisR]

Starting to see some backlash building on twitter. Apparently early reports are that the film doesn't really address the AIDS epidemic in a meaningful way. Not sure how that can be determined with the finished version so far away, but there ya go...
http://www.indiewire.com/2018/05/br...-trailer-freddie-mercury-gay-aids-1201965009/

If the movie's climax is Mercury's incredible Live Aid performance then what can you do? Personally, I'd rather walk out of the theater on a high from a recreation of that performance than walk out feeling completely depressed having seen a recreation of Freddie's death. And I'm being presumptuous but I think Mercury would rather have the audience walk out feeling good too.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

That's a good teaser and it looks like the film could be fun. Particularly because they have those songs to set the images against. I have not followed all the drama on getting this one made but it looks like it could all pay off.

 

[genesim]

That actor from the Pacific was awesome. I would never in a million years think of him playing Freddie, but now I can't see it any other way. I got a good feeling about this one. Great trailer.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Despite all the drama surrounding his firing, Bryan Singer will still be receiving the sole directing credit on the film. It doesn't sound like Dexter Fletcher shot enough of it to qualify. Maybe he'll be credited some other way.

And yet...I don't think Singer will actually get to deliver a cut to the studio, since Fletcher is supervising the final edit as a result of Singer's firing.

https://deadline.com/2018/06/bryan-...cting-credit-on-bohemian-rhapsody-1202408753/

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The DGA has strong rules that are heavily biased toward the original director when assigning credit. Lord and Miller voluntarily accepted executive producer credits in lieu of a directing credit on Solo, otherwise they would have had a strong case for the same reason.

Once upon a time, I believe Clint Eastwood had a habit of firing directors on his pictures that worked too slowly and taking over the directing himself. The DGA wanted to discourage this, and the rules in place now were the result.

 

[John Dirk]

Saw a recent production of We Will Rock You on a cruise about a month ago. Excited for this.

 

[Tino]

Not a fan of Freddie Mercury but I love the music of Queen. I’m undecided if I’ll see this.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Lord and Miller voluntarily accepted executive producer credits in lieu of a directing credit on Solo, otherwise they would have had a strong case for the same reason.

My understanding is that it's based on percentage shot; a replacement director has to have filmed a certain percentage of it to get credit. I think in that case, if Howard shot 70% of the final cut as has been reported, he would likely have been entitled to credit since that is the majority. However, it was thoroughly decent of Lord and Miller not to contest it.

On Bohemian Rhapsody, if Dexter Fletcher only shot 16 days of it, that's obviously a different situation since it's way less material than Howard reshot. It sounds like he may no even have actually reshot anything, but just finished what Singer didn't get to before going AWOL.

The whole situation seems super weird, and I suspect we won't ever get the full details of it. Even if you have a sick parent as Singer claims, why would anyone think it's OK to just disappear on your boss for four days? Especially if you are at the helm of something that costs your boss millions of dollars to make? That's just strange.

 

[TravisR]

I bet everyone at Fox is going to be living in stark raving terror from now until November that someone is going to come forward and give a face to the rumors about Singer.

 

[Malcolm R]

I bet everyone at Fox is going to be living in stark raving terror from now until November that someone is going to come forward and give a face to the rumors about Singer.

Yeah, if that was one of their pre-emptive reasons for wanting him off the film, that kind of blew up in their face.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

My understanding is that it's based on percentage shot; a replacement director has to have filmed a certain percentage of it to get credit. I think in that case, if Howard shot 70% of the final cut as has been reported, he would likely have been entitled to credit since that is the majority. However, it was thoroughly decent of Lord and Miller not to contest it.

On Bohemian Rhapsody, if Dexter Fletcher only shot 16 days of it, that's obviously a different situation since it's way less material than Howard reshot. It sounds like he may no even have actually reshot anything, but just finished what Singer didn't get to before going AWOL.

The whole situation seems super weird, and I suspect we won't ever get the full details of it. Even if you have a sick parent as Singer claims, why would anyone think it's OK to just disappear on your boss for four days? Especially if you are at the helm of something that costs your boss millions of dollars to make? That's just strange.

I did some research. The so-called "Eastwood rule" only applies to people already on the production at the time of the firing. If, say, Lawrence Kasdan had replaced Miller & Lord as the director, Miller & Lord would have gotten the director's credit even if Kasdan had directly nearly the entire movie, because he was already associated with the movie as a writer and producer. And there's a good chance that Kasdan would have been barred from participating in future DGA productions. Since Ron Howard wasn't associated with the production at the time of Miller & Lord's firing, the "Eastwood rule" didn't apply to him. In cases where a new director is brought in from the outside, the studio gets to make the initial determination as to the director's credit. If Miller & Lord had wanted to challenge Disney designating Howard as the director, they could have appealed to the DGA. The DGA would have then had 14 days to determine who should get the credit. Since Miller & Lord didn't challenge Disney's designation, it was a moot point.

Whether the "Eastwood rule" applies in this case is murkier, because Dexter Fletcher had been involved in the project before Bryan Singer came on as director. However, their time working on the picture never overlapped. What is clear is that there was more than 10 percent of the picture left to shoot, because if Bryan Singer had shot more than 90 percent of the picture, he would have had the right to determine the final edit.

One thing that helps in this case is that it wasn't, by all accounts, a problem with the creative direction of the footage shot during Singer's time on the picture. Both Fox and Fletcher were happy with what was already in the can from Singer. It was literally just a matter of bringing the rest of the picture in after Singer's abrupt disappearance and dismissal.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Since Ron Howard wasn't associated with the production at the time of Miller & Lord's firing, the "Eastwood rule" didn't apply to him.

This is probably exactly why he was hired instead of Kennedy just asking Kasdan to do it.

Whether the "Eastwood rule" applies in this case is murkier, because Dexter Fletcher had been involved in the project before Bryan Singer came on as director. However, their time working on the picture never overlapped.

I didn't know Fletcher had been on it before taking over. Do you know what he did originally?

I wonder if he will receive credit in some other capacity.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I didn't know Fletcher had been on it before taking over. Do you know what he did originally?

He was hired as director back in 2013, but left the project in 2014 after "creative differences" with producer Graham King. He agreed to jump back on the project in the wake of Singer's firing because a) he was a fan of the stuff already shot by Singer and b) Fox agreed to leave him alone and let him make the movie, so King was no longer an issue.

 

[Brandon Conway]

At this point this film is obviously more of a studio/producers vision anyway, so I don't know if the credited director would matter all that much in the end.

That being said, I think it looks rather great. It's certainly going for more of a celebration of Mercury/Queen rather than trying to be some kind of deep dive into their struggles, but that's okay. Not every biopic needs to be about harsh truths. Mercury himself was a very private man who loved to express himself in his musical ideas and performances. The other band members were also key writers of their music (they really are one of the more well rounded bands when it comes to who wrote their various hits). If the movie captures that spirit it's every bit a "correct" biopic as some other rougher, more somber version would be.