I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering every time I go to karaoke, I hear “Bohemian Rhapsody” probably 27,890 times. But Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury biopic of the same name is now the highest-grossing music biopic of all time.
All. Time.
Deadline reports that the movie has brought in over $600 million at the global box office, taking the place of the previous highest-grossing music biopic Straight Outta Compton, which brought in over $200 million worldwide.
The success of Bohemian Rhapsody is frustrating, given that, according to many critics, it’s not just a bad movie but an arguably homophobic one that portrays Mercury’s sexuality as one of the reasons for his death. The film also includes factual inaccuracies, which could be forgiven in most biopics, but in this case makes it seem like Mercury’s HIV diagnosis was one of the reasons for Queen getting back together for Live Aid (when he did not know his diagnosis until a few years later.) That is one sick change to make to his life story just to film a more compelling movie.
So how did this happen? Well, audiences are disinterested in the truth, for one. But maybe Malek was so compelling as Mercury, with his comically oversized teeth, that people just couldn’t look away.
I mean, I certainly can’t look away. Have you seen those teeth?