We found out that Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen was going to play Freddie Mercury, the late great singer of the band Queen, back in 2010. But now, sadly, the actor has been forced to walk away from the project.

Cohen brought in two-time Academy Award nominee Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) to write the script, and he had been looking for potential directors to take on the biopic. Unfortunately he could never find approval from the remaining members of Queen, who have final say on both the screenplay and director. According to sources, it was this same final say from Queen that also ultimately led to Cohen’s departure. While he was aiming to make a more mature, R-rated tell-all about Mercury, Queen seems determined for the movie to be a more family-friendly PG-rated biopic.

Hugo
Netflix Streaming
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen, Ray Winstone, Jude Law, Christopher Lee, Helen McCrory, Richard Griffiths
Paramount Pictures
Originally Released: November 23, 2011

With all the praise surrounding the immersive 3D experience of Hugo, I truthfully didn’t think I would enjoy watching the movie on the small screen in a streaming viewing experience. In fact, with the “kid’s movie” stigma attached to it, I’m fairly sure I wanted to dislike it.

But it is impossible to dislike a Martin Scorsese film.

Despite the deficiency of 3D immersion, Scorsese had my attention riveted from the very beginning of the movie. With several early sequences that embodies his trademark single-shot “how the hell did he film this” technique(s), connected with high standard acting from a stellar cast, Hugo stands well enough on its own without that 3D garbage, thank-you-very-much!

Actually, the coupling of Scorsese’s filming and direction techniques, with the excellent cast make this a superb movie experience. And when it comes to the cast, Scorsese most definitely has an eyeball for talent: Ray Winstone, Christopher Lee, Richard Griffiths, Jude Law, and more all favor the screen in Hugo, but it is Asa Butterfield‘s performance as the title character that tremendously grabs you.

Recently Sacha Baron Cohen took a step away from the mockumentary genre and went forward with the raunchy political comedy The Dictator. But after spoofing rappers, journalists, and fashion experts, the comedian is putting a satire of the spy genre in his crosshairs.

A report says that Baron Cohen and Phil Johnston have successfully sold a spy comedy pitch to Paramount. No amount was disclosed, but it is said that the pitch sold for high six to low seven figures.

Every day here at Doom HQ we receive tons of tips from our readers about really cool stuff from the world of geek, as well as promotional materials for new films, comic books, collectibles, and much more. While we do our best to bring you as much of it as possible, we don’t always have enough geek manpower available to cover it all on a daily basis. But we hate the idea of all of this really cool stuff wasting away in our inbox. How could we NOT cover it? Hence why we’ve resurrected our long-defunct column Bits Of Doom, now rebranded and revamped as Doom Digest, a collection of easily digestible bits of news, videos, photos, and other goodies.

Today: Martin Freeman beatboxing in Ali G Indahouse, Spider-Man bathrobes, Harry Potter supercut of all the spells, artist recreation of the magazine covers seen in Blade Runner, how The Avengers should have ended, and Snow White’s Scary Adventures takes it final journey at Disney World, plus Bits Of Doom.

Cameras may have already started rolling but a few cast members are finding it difficult to commit to the film schedule for Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained. A couple of weeks back Joseph Gordon-Levitt had to pull out of his role as one of two slave trading siblings because of his commitment to his directorial debut. Now comes word that Kurt Russell and Sacha Baron Cohen will no longer be appearing in the film, which is currently shooting for a December release.

Cohen made the announcement of him exiting the role on The Howard Stern Show, citing scheduling conflicts with his press tour for The Dictator as the reason why he had to exit the project. There is also the issue of shooting his role in Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables that comes into conflict with shooting his cameo in Django Unchained.