Tom Hooper For Freddie Mercury Movie? 'Les Miserables' Director Could Team With Sacha Baron Cohen

From "One Day More" to "One Year of Love"? According to Mike Fleming at Deadline.com, "Les Miserables" director Tom Hooper is kicking the tires on the long gestating Freddie Mercury biopic that has Sacha Baron Cohen attached to star. Hooper and Mercury worked together on "Les Miserables" last year and the director had high praise for Cohen's performance.

Sacha, you know, he's got to be one of the best comedians on the planet," Hooper told HuffPost Entertainment about Cohen, who played Thénardier in "Les Mis." "He's also proven that he's got tremendous acting ability. There are moments in 'Bruno' that have incredible humanity. He was my first choice. Working with him, I was incredibly impressed at the rigor of his comedy. There's a lot of hard work that goes behind being funny that people don't think of, because they just think these funny guys just sort of turn up. Sacha is naturally funny, but there's a lot of discipline and forethought that goes into something like the 'Master of the House' sequence that obviously was really cool to see."

Cohen was first attached to the Freddie Mercury movie in 2010, but the project was caught up in "contractual things," according to Queen guitarist Brian May.

"The pieces are all falling into place, though we are now on a slightly later schedule -- filming is now scheduled to start in the Spring, with Sacha Baron Cohen playing Freddie," May wrote back in October of 2012. "The film should be ready for release early in 2014."

For more on Hooper's decision, as well as the latest news on what Steven Spielberg and David Fincher have coming up, head over to Deadline.com.

[via Deadline.com]