I didn’t have particularly high hopes for Bohemian Rhapsody, but despite its torturous production, it turned out way better than I expected. My favorite sequence by far was the film’s climactic recreation of Queen’s iconic performance during 1985’s Live Aid. This was perhaps the highlight of the band’s career, showcasing Freddie Mercury at his most potent and powerful. So, the news that the upcoming home video release will include a full recreation of it is good to hear as far as I’m concerned.
20th Century Fox revealed what we should expect earlier today, and on top of the full 22-minute recreation of Live Aid, we’ll also get a couple of making-of documentaries entitled Rami Malek: Becoming Freddie, The Look and Sound of Queen and Recreating Live Aid. And as far as I can tell, that’s about it. While those will no doubt shed some light onto how and why the finished product ended up on screen, I’m sure fans will be disappointed that none of the lengthy deleted scenes appear to have made the disc.
Collider’s Steve Weintraub explains that he interviewed the cast prior to the film’s release where they openly chatted about what was left on the cutting room floor. These include Freddie clubbing in 1980s New York, how the Queen emblem was invented, John Deacon joining the band, more of Freddie and Mary in their apartment, the band performing “’39” on tour in Japan and Freddie composing “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” in his bathtub. They all sound like pretty neat scenes and I’d have loved to have had a look at them.
Given the film’s popularity (outperforming box office projections to haul in almost $670 million), it’s possible that Fox is holding this footage back in order to release an extended cut of Bohemian Rhapsody at a later date. If that were the case, they’d presumably want to keep it under wraps for now so as not to harm sales of the shorter theatrical cut. But hey, it’d certainly shore up interest in any potential sequel. And besides, even without those deleted scenes, I’d still love to see their take on the full Live Aid performance.
