Derek Fletcher, who directed both ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Rocketman’, wanted Rami Malek to resume his role as Freddie Mercury in the Elton John biopic ‘Rocketman’. However, at the last minute he decided not to do that.
“It would have been a bit too much,” Dexter Fletcher told Gay Star News about that. The idea that Freddie Mercury and Elton John would just run into each other somewhere is not strange at all. The two singers shared manager John Reid, played in ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Aidan Gillen and in ‘Rocketman’ played by Richard Madden. “I thought that Elton and his mother would go to a restaurant where John Reid and Freddie would sit at another table and they would wave to each other,” said Fletcher. “That would have been really great, but it never happened.” The director says he didn’t do it in the end because it is not his goal “to create his own film universe.”