Mr. Robot star Rami Malek will portray rock star Freddie Mercury in the long-in-the-works biopic of the band Queen that will be directed by X-Men director Bryan Singer.
Singer made the announcement Friday on Instagram.
Fox and New Regency are behind the project, titled Bohemian Rhapsody, which will be produced by Graham King. Anthony McCarten, Oscar-nominated for The Theory of Everything, wrote the most recent draft.
The boarding of Malek and Singer kickstarts a project that had petered out since Sacha Baron Cohen walked away from it after spending years attached to play Mercury.
The flamboyant frontman was born in what is now Tanzania and grew up in India before moving to England in the mid-1960s. He teamed up with Brian May and Roger Taylor in 1970 to form Queen, a seminal rock band with hits such as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “We Are the Champions,” and “Somebody to Love” (and who can forget their soundtrack work for Flash Gordon and Highlander?). Mercury, generally acknowledged to have one of the great voices in rock, died in 1991 from complications due to AIDS. He was 45.
King, who won an Oscar for 2006’s The Departed, has the Brad Pitt-Marion Cotillard spy love story Allied hitting theaters Nov. 23.
Malek is coming off of an Emmy win for his work on USA’s cult hit show Mr. Robot.
Singer has been stewarding the X-Men franchise for Fox, most recently directing this summer’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
