It’s all been leading to this. The cinematic universe. The reliance on a sustainable brand, one with the synergistic potential to unfold across multiple modes of storytelling, branding, and promotion. And the slow monopolization of Hollywood ensures that, soon, there will not multiple cinematic universes. No, there will be one, and writers will set up all the movies in every movie. Actors will forgo many roles in favor of one role. And they will cameo in everything. And we won’t realize we’re all living in Kevin Feige’s Synecdoche, New York.
We’re seeing it happen with the MCU and The Conjuring franchise, as well as, apparently, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune. And we came this close to seeing it happen with the current boom in music biopics. In a new interview with Gay Star News, Rocketman director Dexter Fletcher revealed that he came close to linking his kaleidoscopic vision of Elton John’s world with that of Bohemian Rhapsody, the Oscar-winning Freddie Mercury biopic he finished after original director Bryan Singer was fired.
“There was an idea I had one point, where Elton’s in a restaurant with his mother. I thought John Reid and Freddie could be at another table and they wave at each other!” he said told Gay Star News. “That would have been amazing, [but] it didn’t come to pass. It would’ve been a little too knowing. I’m not looking to set out to make a cinematic universe!”
Not yet, at least.
It’s not a totally crazy idea, as Reid managed both Queen and John between 1975 and 1978. That said, Reid was played by Aidan Gillen in Bohemian Rhapsody and Richard Madden in Rocketman, so perhaps some clever editing would’ve been required?
So, no, it didn’t happen, but you know someone somewhere is bringing up how “cool” it’d be if Rami Malek’s Mercury and Taron Egerton’s John popped up in the upcoming biopics of Aretha Franklin and Boy George.