Sacha Baron Cohen has dropped out of the Freddie Mercury biopic due to “creative differences”

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Well, it looks like the long-in-development Freddie Mercury biopic is going to stay long in development. Deadline is reporting that actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who has been attached to play the late singer for quite a while, has hit a snag with the bandmembers of Queen, who have script and director approval over the film, and left the project. So, what was the problem?

The reason is that the band wanted to make more of a PG movie about Queen while Cohen was counting on a gritty R-rated tell-all centered around the gifted gay singer.

Apparently, Cohen wanted to bring in directors like David Fincher or Tom Hooper (with whom he'd just worked with on LES MISERABLES), but the band wouldn't approve either, leaving Cohen to exit the project over "creative differences." It's unclear where the project will go from here, as Cohen has been the unifying factor from the get go. I can easily see how the band could hinder the project, though, especially when it comes to telling a "warts-and-all" kind of tale versus a glossy PG fairy tale. I mean, in what universe is a rock star's life rated PG? Miley Cyrus was barely PG at her tamest, so taking a prolific rocker like Mercury and making it into some faux "commercial" story not only sounds grossly inaccurate, but completely boring. Why make it at all if that's the case?

More as this develops. Well, if it develops any further that is.