Freddie Mercury movie going ahead with X-Men director and new lead actor

Breaking the news on his Instagram page, X-Men filmmaker Bryan Singer confirmed he is directing the movie with the 35-yr-old Emmy Award winning star of Mr. Robot, Rami Malek (pictured above), playing Freddie.

Singer shared an image of the iconic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ video and captioned it: “Looking forward to @ramimalek playing #Freddie.”

The film will be produced by GK Films with movie studio giants 20th Century Fox and New Regency collaborating. Theory of Everything screenwriter Anthony McCarten has penned the latest script.

> #bohemianrhapsody #queen #freddiemercury #brianmay #rogertaylor #johndeacon #grahamking #fox #newregency Looking forward to @ramimalek @whoismrrobot playing #Freddie photo @therealmickrock > > A photo posted by Bryan Singer (@bryanjaysinger) on Nov 4, 2016 at 3:23pm PDT

Both Roger Taylor and Brian May have been actively involved in the movie from the offset.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen had been due to play Freddie but quit due to creative differences in 2013.

He told Howard Stern: "A member of the band – I won’t say who – said: ‘You know, this is such a great movie because it’s got such an amazing thing that happens in the middle.’

“And I go: ‘What happens in the middle of the movie?’ He goes: ‘You know, Freddie dies.’ ... I go: ‘What happens in the second half of the movie?’ He goes: ‘We see how the band carries on from strength to strength.’

“I said: ‘Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from Aids and then you see how the band carries on.’”

Brian May strongly refuted these claims, telling Event magazine earlier this year: “Sacha became an arse. We had some nice times with Sacha kicking around ideas, but he went off and told untruths about what happened.”

There is no release schedule yet for Bohemian Rhapsody but several news sites say that filming is due to start in early 2017.