In the last few days, Bohemian Rhapsody, the Freddie Mercury biopic, has been looking for a new director since Fox fired Bryan Singer (X-Men: Apocalypse) after reports of constant absences and on-set clashes with the cast started to surface. Singer claims that he was absent to address a family matter. However, the studio promised that they would find a director to finish the job, which had two weeks of production left on the schedule.

Now it appears that they have found him. Reports confirm that Eddie The Eagle director Dexter Fletcher will be Singer’s replacement. More on the story below.

Variety was the first to report on the news. Based on it, the studio didn’t have to look too far to find a director considering that they were the ones to distribute Eddie The Eagle. In fact, Fletcher was one of Fox’s top choices before Singer signed on to direct.

With only two weeks left of production left, it is hard to tell if we will see any of Fletcher’s vision in the film. While there have been similar cases of this in the past – Ron Howard replacing Phil Lord and Chris Miller after they parted ways on Solo: A Star Wars Story, and Joss Whedon stepping in to oversee post-production of Justice League after Zack Snyder had to leave to address a family matter. However, Bohemian Rhapsody comes with its own special set of circumstances because it’s not clear if he will just direct the remainder of the film or if he will try to work with what Singer did before he left and essentially make it is own. We won’t even know who will get a directing credit, at least not until the Directors Guild Of America takes a look at what happened.

Bohemian Rhapsody centers on five years of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, and stars (Rami Malek) as the lead singer of the iconic band up until his performance at the Live Aid. The film also stars Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello, Allen Leech, and Lucy Boynton.

It is set for release on December 25, 2018.

[Source: Variety]