As of this writing, Bohemian Rhapsody has pulled in over $903 million dollars worldwide. It's on the verge of cracking one billion dollars in profits, and according to Queen guitarist, Brian May, the band haven't seen a penny of it.
The movie, which won multiple Golden Globes and Academy Awards, among other accolades, hasn't netted May and his bandmates any extra cash. May revealed this to BBC Radio 2’s The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show saying:
“It was a long labor of love — about 12 years in development, I guess. We thought it would do well in the end and we felt good about it, but we didn’t realize it would do that well. It’s incredible around the world — it’s like a billion-dollar movie.
I had to laugh the other day, because there’s a thing in the paper saying that we were getting rich off this movie. If they only knew. We had an accountant in the other day, and we still haven’t earned a penny from it. Isn’t that funny? How successful does a movie have to be before you make money? There’s so many people that people don’t realize will take pieces off the top.”
So I guess it's safe to assume that the one industry shadier than the music industry is the film industry. I guess that isn't much of a shocking revelation.
May also praised the performance by Rami Malek, portraying Queen frontman Freddie Mercury: “I think Freddie comes out it with his dignity, but without having been whitewashed in any way. It’s very real. […] I think people are astounded how close to Freddie Rami [Malek] got. It’s phenomenal the way he got inside Freddie’s body somehow, inside his skin.”
The film was criticized for downplaying Mercury's bi-sexuality and instead focusing on his interest in men, and additional criticism was given for the way the movie made it seem like Mercury's HIV diagnosis was somehow a punishment for his sexual proclivity.
You can hear the entire interview below:
[via Uproxx]
