In September it was announced that Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Bruno) had signed up to play Freddie Mercury, who was the lead vocalist of rock band Queen. The movie was said to focus on the band’s formative years and lead up to Queen’s appearance at Live Aid in 1985 which is considered one of rock’s all-time great live concert performances.

Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) was hired to write the script and he recently revealed how he got involved with the movie, and the direction he is taking it.

From CinemaBlend:

“Sacha was the one who asked me to write it. He was the guy who rang me up.”

“I didn’t want to write an AIDS movie, to be honest with you. And then, I just looked at the period– It’s sort of where he rejects [the other members of Queen] and comes back to them. It’s sort of like a family movie. It’s sort of like I hate my family, I want to be independent, and then I come back.”

The surviving members of Queen– Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon– are collaborating on the project as producers, and though Morgan said he would use their input to recreate the history of the band, it wasn’t going to be a puff piece or even necessarily show them in a good light:

“I’m not sure how much they’ll like what I write. I think they’ll recognize the truth in it, but it’s a series of painful memories for them. I’m essentially writing about the most painful time in the band’s history.”

Sacha Baron Cohen’s casting is still perfect even though he came up with the idea himself. The Academy loves movies based on iconic musicians (Jamie Foxx in Ray, Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart, Walk the Line, Dreamgirls) so this movie could easily be an Oscar contender in the future, especially with Peter Morgan involved.

GK Films (The Tourist, The Town) are producing, and the aim is to begin filming next year.

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From what we have heard from various people involved with Bond 23 such as Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and writer Peter Morgan, it seems the plan is to begin pre-production in February with a late 2010/early 2011 filming start. However MGM (the lion studio) didn’t have a very good 2009 money-wise and are in the process of selling themselves, with takeover bids expected over the upcoming weeks. This is obviously impacting the studios future line-up, which includes Bond 23.

Longtime Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli recently gave Total Film an update on the status of the film, and they said they don’t have a solid timeline set for the next Bond instalment.

Asked what the current status of the project is, Wilson said: “Well, our timeline’s a little up in the air what with the situation at MGM, so we have to be flexible. We just don’t know enough about the situation to comment, but we know it’s uncertain.”

“Well… we’ve hired the writers and we’ve been working with them but it’s just too early to say anything,” he said. “You know, often at this stage, I find myself saying, ‘Oh, we’re gonna do this and that’, then six months from now you’ll say, ‘That isn’t in the film at all – you told me it was…’ I think we’re at the stage where a lot of ideas are floating around that sound very good, but whether they make the final cut, who knows?”

Hopefully MGM get a good buyer in the near future so they can start making concrete plans for Bond 23. Their first plan should be to find a director!

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Back in June Peter Morgan, writer of The Queen, Frost/Nixon and The Last King of Scotland, was hired to work on the script for Bond 23 alongside regular James Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. Morgan recently spoke to fan site Mi6 and talked briefly about working on the film.

From July until October this year, Morgan was writing the first draft of Bond 23 – the third outing for Daniel Craig as 007. “It’s a shocking story”, he said after admitting he couldn’t give anything more away.

Being on the 007 team is a new experience for Morgan. “Bond creates a hysteria around it, one that I haven’t previous known”, he said. “It’s a magnet for publicity – everyone wants to know what’s going on with the new Bond”.

Shocking is good. I never thought I’d ever see a scene which involved Bond getting his gonads beat repeatedly by the villain, but that “shocking” scene occured in Casino Royale.

Over the past few months we’ve heard from both Daniel Craig and Judi Dench that filming will take place towards the end of 2010/beginning of 2011, and pre-production is expected to begin in February.

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It looks like The Observer were wrong! A few days after they thought Paul Haggis would be back to write the script for Bond 23, MGM have announced that Peter Morgan has been brought on-board to write alongside Neal Purvis and Robert Wade (who have worked on the past few Bond films). Morgan has written a lot of Oscar bait in the past such as The Queen, Frost/Nixon and The Last King of Scotland, so it’s obvious he hasn’t been hired to write the action scenes. Getting a great character writer is a good move by MGM. We’ll have to see if these good creative decisions continue when it comes to finding a director.

No start date or release date have been announced yet, although i’d expect Bond 23 to be released sometime in 2011.

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