Artist News

Mercury film will focus on early eighties not AIDS death

By | Published on Tuesday 12 October 2010

The man writing the in-development Freddie Mercury biopic, in which Sacha Baron Cohen will play the late Queen frontman, has said the film will not deal with the late star’s death from AIDS in 1991.

Peter Morgan has told reporters that his script will focus more on the troubled relationship between Mercury and his bandmates Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon. He told Cinema Blend: “I didn’t want to write an AIDS movie, to be honest with you. And then, I just looked at the period [up to the band’s famous Live Aid slot in 1985]. It’s sort of where he rejects [the other members of Queen] and comes back to them. It’s sort of like a family movie. It’s sort of like I hate my family, I want to be independent, and then I come back”.

The aforementioned other Queen members are co-producers on the project, and Morgan is a little bit nervous as to how well they’ll respond to everything he plans to put in the film. “I think they’ll recognise the truth in it”, he continued, “but it’s a series of painful memories for them. I’m essentially writing about the most painful time in the band’s history”.



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