Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody lost £37m despite grossing £674m, accounting documents claim

Screenwriter Anthony McCarton is suing production company for alleged breach of contract

Bohemian Rhapsody reportedly lost $51m (£37.7m) despite grossing $911m (£674.5m) worldwide, film company Fox has claimed.

Released in 2018, the Oscar-winning music biopic starred Rami Malek as the Queen frontman Freddy Mercury.

On Wednesday (17 November), Deadline reported that New Zealand screenwriter Anthony McCarten is suing Graham King and his company GK Films over money he claims to be owed from the film.

McCarten, who also wrote the screenplays for biopics The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour, said he made a deal with King where he would receive five per cent of GK Films’s take home from Bohemian Rhapsody.

However, when Fox and Disney took over the production company, McCarten claims that the deal accounting definitions changed and he has not been paid anything from this deal, with King allegedly ignoring his appeals to be paid.

In accounting statements that will surprise film fans, Twentieth Century Fox claims that Bohemian Rhapsody owes $51m (£37.7m) despite grossing $911m (£674.5m) worldwide. Deadline says that this is due to a studio net point deal.

McCarten’s lawyers are asking for “monetary damages” and a full accounting of the film.

Fox says that he is only due any profits under their “defined net proceeds” definition, rather than GK Films’s own “net proceeds” definition.

The studio acquired Bohemian Rhapsody in 2016 as part of a highly-publicised merger with Disney in 2019.

The Independent has contacted GK Films for comment.