Rami Malek Ready to Rock You as Freddie Mercury
After years of pitfalls and false starts, could the long-awaited Queen and Freddie Mercury biopic be back on track? New reports suggest that Bryan Singer (X-Men: Apocalypse) is in talks to direct the biopic about Queen’s rise to acclaim and the tumultuous years following the death of Mercury in in 1991. Rami Malek (Mr. Robot) is currently slated to star as the frontman in Bohemian Rhapsody, written by Anthony McCarten (The Theory of Everything). While a slew of directors and stars have previously been attached to the project, Malek feels like an inspired choice to play Mercury, and his acclaim is definitely hot right now with his recent Emmy win. Singer is occasionally hit or miss, but he can certainly handle the larger than life scope needed to adequately tell the story of both Mercury and Queen. We’ve gotten excited before, but perhaps now the time has come to finally get our hopes up.
(Deadline)
Quentin Tarantino Confirms Retirement Rumor
One of the troubles for any artist is knowing when to bow out. How many times has your favorite musician or director made one film too many and ruined their legacy in your mind? This potentially won’t be a problem for Quentin Tarantino, who recently confirmed the rumors that he plans to retire from filmmaking after his tenth film, leaving us with just two more movies from the director to look forward to. Tarantino confirmed the news recently at Adobe Max—The Creativity Conference in San Diego. The filmmaker said, “At the end of the day, if you’re going to get right down to it … the way I define success is when I’m finished with the career, and I’m considered one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. That would be successful. And going further, a great artist, not just filmmaker.” Of course, with often years between Tarantino films, it could be anywhere between 6 and 10 years before we see the last of his works, and a lot can change between now and then. Still, for now, at least we know his answer to Neil Young’s “burn out or fade away” conundrum.
(Variety)
‘Sandman’ in Limbo After Screenwriter Departure
Will Sandman ever happen? Neil Gaiman’s influential series of graphic novels have has a difficult road getting from page to screen, and the road just got a little bit harder. Just months after losing director and star Joseph Gordon-Levitt, screenwriter Eric Heisserer announced that he, too, was leaving the project after determining that the only way to adequately adapt Gaiman’s sprawling opus is as a TV show. He’s not exactly wrong, either. With 75 issues, plus 10 issues of various side stories, Sandman has a wide variety of plotlines to choose from, many of which don’t pay off for some time. It would be a massive undertaking to try and do justice to the story in a single movie, and the series seems ready made for the HBO or Netflix treatment. Perhaps, then, it’s time to reconsider the feature outing and bring the series to where it truly belongs.
(io9)
Marvel Scores with ‘Strange’
There’s just no stopping Marvel. The film studio shot to the top of the box office charts this weekend with Doctor Strange, which conjured up a stunning $84.9 million in ticket sales. It’s closest competitor, the family friendly Trolls, was still a distant second with $45.6 million, while Mel Gibson’s comeback effort Hacksaw Ridge pulled in a mere $14.7 million. Rounding out this weekend’s top 5 was Boo! A Madea Halloween, which dropped from first to fourth place with $7.8 million, and Tom Hanks’ Inferno, which earned $6.2 million. For the full list, see below.
- Doctor Strange-$84.9 million
- Trolls-$45.6 million
- Hacksaw Ridge-$14.7 million
- Boo! A Madea Halloween-$7.8 million
- Inferno-$6.2 million
- The Accountant-$5.9 million
- Jack Reacher: Never Go Back-$5.5 million
- Ouija: Origin of Evil-$3.9 million
- The Girl on the Train-$2.7 million
- Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children-$2.1 million
The post Film Bits: ‘Mr. Robot’ Emmy Winner Lands Freddie Mercury; Quentin Tarantino Confirms Retirement Plans appeared first on Glide Magazine.