Author: Chris Thilk / Source: The Hollywood Reporter
20th Century Fox’s campaign puts Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury in the spotlight and also plays up the rest of the band.
Opening less than a month after Warner Bros. musical drama A Star Is Born bowed stateside to $42.
9 million, 20th Century Fox is hoping that moviegoers are ready to rock with Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody.Rhapsody, which is tracking to debut in the $35 million to $40 million range, cost $55 million and sits at 58 percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The movie, which follows the rise of the band Queen, stars Rami Malek as lead singer Freddie Mercury.
The film been plagued by poor headlines during production based largely around the departure of original director Bryan Singer, who is said to have clashed with Malek and failed to return to the set after a break late last year. Singer is still credited as the director, though Dexter Fletcher — who also directed the upcoming Elton John biopic Rocketman — stepped in to finish production and editing.
Also raising concerns were early promotions that were criticized for allegedly downplaying Mercury’s sexuality at the expense of putting the band as a whole in the spotlight. That’s in part because the surviving members of the band have been heavily involved with the movie, including serving as producers and musical supervisors.
The Posters
Malek as Mercury is shown in closeup — or at least half his face is — while he’s sporting the singer’s instantly-recognizable mustache and sunglasses, the latter of which are reflecting the name of the band. (note: “Queen” is readable in the reflection, meaning it’s actually backwards on whatever we’re supposed to believe Mercury is looking at. Graphic design and branding don’t always mesh…) “Fearless is forever” is the copy here, conveying Mercury’s approach to his music and other parts of his life.
The second one-sheet uses an image meant to evoke Queen’s legendary “Live Aid” performance as we see Mercury in full dramatic pose set against the sun setting through the upper deck of Wembley Arena. A series of posters features each of the band members shown through the letters forming the title of one of their biggest, most recognizable hits.
Mercury is back on stage and playing dramatically to the crowd on two format-exclusive posters, the IMAX once more showing the Live Aid crowd at Wembley and the Dolby simply showing him looking larger-than-life with the microphone in hand.
The Trailers
Concert footage gets the (17 million views on YouTube) from May started. There’s not much dialogue as it mostly just shows us scenes from throughout Mercury’s and the band’s career as they perform, record and so on while the music that we all know so well plays over it. The little bit of dialogue there is focuses mostly on a few key moments such as recording the song of the…
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