The casting of a legendary musician in a biopic can be a tricky thing. Sometimes the actor can seem like a natural fit (Gary Oldman in “Sid and Nancy,” for instance), and sometimes they can come from left field (we certainly never imagined Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, although he did a solid job). There can also be the disastrous picks, as anyone who’s seen Kevin Spacey as Bobby Darin in “Beyond The Sea” can attest to. This evening has brought news of a music biopic which, while we never would have imagined it, suddenly seems like a perfect bit of casting.
Deadline report that Sacha Baron Cohen, the erstwhile star of “Borat” and “Bruno,” will play the late Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in a new film being produced by Graham King’s GK Films and Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Productions. The script comes from biopic specialist Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “The Last King of Scotland,” “Frost/Nixon”), and will apparently focus on the early years of the band, culminating in their performance at Live Aid in 1985.
Rights to the band’s music have been secured, and the surviving members of the group — Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon — will be involved in the production. This writer has never been a big Queen fan, but there’s no denying that Mercury lived an interesting enough life to be the subject of a film like this, and Baron Cohen is terrific casting. The comedian-turned-actor is very picky about his roles, but clearly the promise here is enough to make him sign on. His previous role outside of comedy in Tim Burton’s “Sweeney Todd” was pretty terrific, one of the highlights of that film, and he’s currently starring in Martin Scorsese’s “Hugo Cabret,” so he’s clearly going to have a more interesting career path than most comedians.
Producer Graham King told Deadline “Queen is one of the greatest rock bands of all time, and a music brand all unto itself. Freddie Mercury was an awe-inspiring performer, so with Sacha in the starring role coupled with Peter’s screenplay and the support of Queen, we have the perfect combination to tell the real story behind their success.” The big question now is when the film will go ahead: Cohen sold a pitch earlier in the year to Paramount for a new comedy in which he’d star in dual roles as a goat-herder and a deposed dictator, and that’s allegedly on the fast track. But it doesn’t sound like Morgan’s started the script for the Mercury project yet, so our guess is that the comedy’ll go first, and this will then shoot late next year for release in the 2012 Oscar season. There’s no word on a director yet, but we imagine that’ll be the next priority for all concerned.
