In a case of Hollywood Accounting, producers of the film claim it's "$51 million in the red". The film grossed $911 million on a $50-55 million budget. Writer Anthony McCartenis suing them.
Trivia Tropes
Approval of God: Brian May and Roger Taylor have effusively praised Rami Malek's performance, with Taylor even saying he's far better than Sacha Baron Cohen (who was set to play Mercury when the film was in development during the early 2010s) would have been.note John Deacon has been very reclusive since his retirement and gave no statement beyond a blanket approval for the film's existence, as did Mary Austin who has been fairly reclusive as well.
Awesome, Dear Boy: Ben Hardy emailed Bryan Singer directly to ask for a role in this film, and was ecstatic that he got cast as Roger Taylor (in spite of having no musical experience).
Banned in China: Initially, the film was indeed banned in China, albeit it was later announced that it will receive a Chinese release in 2019, with all mentions of homosexuality and drugs cut.
Colbert Bump: The song "I'm In Love With My Car", one of the few relatively obscure songs of Queen's discography, gained a popularity boost after the film's release, mainly due to curiosity regarding why it's made as the film's Running Gag.
Creator Backlash: Editor John Ottman, after facing tons of ridicule for his Academy Award win due to the haphazard work in the scene where the band first meet with John Reid, admitted that he was quite ashamed of the scene himself, and blamed Executive Meddling for forcing the overly frenetic cutting style on him. And apparently several other scenes suffered from it in the original cut, but he took advantage of delays in the Troubled Production to fix most of them.
Canadian-American (although both of his parents are British) Mike Myers plays Ray Foster.
Fake Irish: Although Allen Leech is Irish, Paul Prenter is from Belfast, which is Northern Ireland and still requires a different accent. The reverse is true of Jim Hutton, where actor Aaron McCusker is from Armagh in Northern Ireland while the real life Hutton was from Carlow in the Republic with again a somewhat different accent.
Hostility on the Set: Bryan Singer was fired from the production due to being absent on multiple occasions and getting into conflicts with the cast and crew. Rami Malek, in particular, is considered one of the most agreeable people in the film industry to work with, so the fact that Singer successfully got on Malek's nerves says a lot.
I Am Not Leonard Nimoy: Word of God has hinted that Sacha Baron Cohen was dropped from the lead due to the fact that he was so well-known as his characters, like Borat and Ali G, that it would be impossible for audiences to see him as Freddie.
Ben Hardy had absolutely no experience playing the drums prior to being cast as Roger Taylor, and so he had to learn how to do so in a matter of weeks before shooting started.
Freddie Mercury was known for being a huge cat lover, which is reflected in the movie by him buying a house and dedicating several rooms for his multiple cats. Rami Malek is actually allergic to cats, and so he couldn't be on set with them at any point, hence why Freddie isn't shown physically interacting with his cats at all in the movie.
Missing Trailer Scene: In a scene that didn't appear in the actual film but was briefly shown in a trailer, Brian May and John Deacon are seen playing their guitars with a bow, which May himself claims to have never done.
Freddie Mercury couldn't be more different from Rami Malek's most famous role in Mr. Robot. Malek even commented this when the producers wanted to hire him after seeing his work on the said show, stating that his character there was the exact anti-thesis of Mercury.
Aidan Gillen normally plays slimy villains but John Reid is supportive of Queen from the get-go.
Tom Hollander likewise often plays villains but Jim Beach is again supportive of Queen.
Mike Myers, the comedian who went to war to have "Bohemian Rhapsody" featured in Wayne's World, as the fictional Ray Foster, a dull, meddling music exec who doesn't understand the appeal that Queen would acquire.
Allen Leech is best known for playing the dashing Irish chauffeur Tom Branson on Downton Abbey but he play's the film's straight-up villain.
Real-Life Relative: Alejandro Orozco, who played a BBC staffer in the Latin American Spanish dub, is the younger brother of Luis Fernando Orozco, John Deacon's LA voice actor.
Release Date Change: The U.S. release of the film was moved backwards from December 25, 2018 to November 2, 2018, presumably so it wouldn't get lost in the shuffle of an extremely crowded Christmas blockbuster schedule (Aquaman, The Grinch, Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee and Holmes & Watson), and also likely for Oscar Bait purposes. This worked out extremely well.
Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Bryan Singer's erratic behavior under Hostility on the Set and Troubled Production got him fired by Fox and replaced by Dexter Fletcher for the remainder of production, in addition to Fox not renewing their deal with Singer's production company. And that's not yet mentioning the ongoing sex abuse allegations against him.
Gwilym Lee as well to Brian May. Many viewers thought some shots of Gwilym in costume were actually archive shots of May.
Troubled Production: Filming was already suffering heavily from director Bryan Singer's repeated absences on shooting days, to the point that Tom Hollander briefly quit the film while star Rami Malek complained to Fox studio heads, who issued warnings to Singer and actually visited the set to monitor his behavior.note Tensions between Singer and Malek grew so bad that at one point Singer threw something at Malek, but the two eventually made up, according to reports. Then Singer went AWOL after the Thanksgiving break, not showing up for ten days straight, which proved to be the breaking point for Fox who then fired him. Dexter Fletcher took his place as director, but his work was uncredited.note Union rules state that a replacement director who has shot at least 51% of a film will get sole credit. While Singer eventually claimed his sudden disappearance was due to "personal health matters", a number of industry insiders suspect that he may have been hiding in fears of past allegations of rape and sexual abuse resurfacing due to the #MeToo movement in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse allegations that took the entertainment industry by storm in late 2017. And then, the day after the film received five Oscar nominations including Best Actor and Picture, an explosive investigative article on those allegations was published in The Atlantic, which more or less sunk the film's hopes of winning Best Picture and made any awards it did win contentious.
Sacha Baron Cohen was set to play Mercury when the film was in development during the early 2010s but departed in 2013 due to Creative Differences with May and Taylor over the story. Allegedly, Baron Cohen had wished to produce a film with his trademark adult-oriented themes, while the band wanted to take a more all audiences-friendly approach (though Baron Cohen later stated that there was a "misunderstanding" about that). May and Taylor also suggested that Baron Cohen was too well known as a comedian and prankster and that his presence in the film would be distracting.
Ben Whishaw was set to replace Baron Cohen but departed due to feeling that the film wasn't progressing well with the script.
According to Baron Cohen, David Fincher considered directing the film.
It was debated about whether to continue the story past Freddie's death in 1991. When Sacha Baron Cohen was still attached, he thought it was in bad taste to treat Freddy's death as something the rest of the band just moved on from. Ultimately the movie ends more triumphantly at the Live Aid performance.
One early draft for the script took place from Brian May's point of view as his is interviewed about the band's history following Freddie's death in the first scene.
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