Was it really only months ago, in the fall of 2017, when the first image of Rami Malek as Queen lead singer/absolute legend Freddie Mercury blew us all away? It feels like forever ago, not just because of how time seems to have come to a standstill lately, but because, while Malek certainly looked the part, we were all waiting to see if he would sound it, with the movie’s appropriately unique approach to capturing Mercury’s unique voice.
They reportedly used a combination of Malek’s voice, actual recordings of Mercury, and a sound-alike performer to get the sound right for the performances in the movie, and if this trailer is indicative of the results, they nailed it. The trailer positions the movie as “his story,” though it’s also necessarily about Queen and their music, with one of the project’s previous directors saying it wouldn’t be “a traditional biopic,” but more of “a celebration” of Queen.
The movie will cover the time period from the band’s formation in the 1970s through their performance at Live Aid in 1985. Notably, that time period would mostly leave out Mercury’s battle with AIDS and his death in 1991, due to complications from the disease, but the official summary of the movie sounds like that may play more of a part in the movie than originally imagined: “The film traces the meteoric rise of the band through their iconic songs and revolutionary sound, their near-implosion as Mercury’s lifestyle spirals out of control, and their triumphant reunion on the eve of Live Aid, where Mercury, facing a life-threatening illness, leads the band in one of the greatest performances in the history of rock music.”
Ultimately, we’ll have to wait until the movie hits theaters on November 2 to see exactly what kind of balance it strikes between giving us all an excuse to rock out and tackling the serious subjects.
(image: 20th Century Fox)
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