As we reported a while back, Sacha Baron Cohen's reasons for leaving the Freddie Mercury / Queen biopic seemed quite logical.
Essentially, Baron Cohen's beef was that the film didn't end with Mercury's death - but rather that Queen continued on and went from strength to strength. As Baron Cohen stated in an interview with Howard Stern, "I said, ‘Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS and then you carry on to see (what happens to the band)."
In response, Queen's guitarist, Brian May, has hit out at Sacha Baron Cohen in a recent interview. "We decided he wasn’t right for the role for very good reasons, which will become apparent if you watch what he’s done recently," said May, referencing the critically-panned Grimsby. "It’s obvious that it wasn’t going to work, him playing Freddie. It wouldn’t suspend your disbelief."
Oof.
May went on, explaining that Sacha Baron Cohen "became an arse. We had some nice times with Sacha kicking around ideas but he went off and told untruths about what happened. Why would he go away and say that we didn’t want to make a gritty film?"
The status of the film is, as of writing, unknown. Ben Whishaw has been rumoured to be closing to signing off to play Mercury, however whether the film will even see the light of the day remains to be seen.
Via Event Magazine