Brian May says the idea of making a sequel to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody film is "so tempting"

Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody — (Image credit: 20th Century Fox / Queen Films)

Brian May says that he's been talking anew with the team behind Queen's hugely-successful Oscar-winning 2018 bio-pic Bohemian Rhapsody and admits that the idea of doing a sequel is "so tempting".

With Rami Malek portraying the late Freddie Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody became the biggest music biopic of all-time, grossing over $910 million worldwide. It also picked up four Oscars, two BAFTA Awards and two Golden Globe awards, despite mixed reviews from critics.

Mentions of a possible sequel to the film arose back in 2019, with videographer Rudi Dolezal, who worked with Queen on videos including These Are the Days of Our Lives, The Show Must Go On, Innuendo and The Miracle, stating that the idea was “being heavily discussed in the Queen family."

However, in a 2020 interview with Rolling Stone, Brian May said a sequel was unlikely.

"Don’t think we didn’t think about it," the guitarist said. "We’ve talked. Basically we think not at the moment. Things could change, I suppose, but I think it would be difficult."

May added: "There are other ideas that we had, but I don’t think a sequel will happen. But we have looked at it pretty seriously.”

In a new interview with the Daily Star, however, it appears that the idea hasn't yet been ruled out.

"We’ve been talking about it," May tells the paper. "I felt proud of it and the people who played us were just phenomenal. It’s so tempting to do the sequel – it would be worth it just to work with those boys again."

“Bohemian Rhapsody climaxed in Live Aid and I suppose implicitly Freddie starting to deal with his AIDS, but an awful lot happened between the end of the film to the end of the glory days of Queen.”

May added that he "loved the fact we were able to do it for Freddie. That really means a lot and I felt we did it in the right way, and in the right spirit.

"Of course we were represented in the movie because we were a group, but it was really all about Freddie, and I think we did him good."

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.