When it was first released people were saying the film was decent but nothing that special but Malek was amazing, and should be in contention for awards, so I don't find it that suprising for him.
Predictions for the next band/singer docu-drama? Guaranteed to happen after the success of this film.
If this won best film, who picked up the award? AFAIK Singer quit before it wrapped but still got the director credit due to a technicality on the Motion Picture of America rules. Did Dexter Fletcher do it?
It says on Wiki (on the 6th) that "In its 10th weekend of release [Bohemian Rhapsody] was added to 199 theaters from the previous week for a total of 1,080, and made $2.4 million." (that's talking about the U.S only though). And, "In South Korea, the film debut at number two in the box office and by the fourth week took over the number one spot.[104] After a short drop for two weeks, the film reclaimed the number one spot in its seventh week, which is a first for a Hollywood movie.[105] As the largest grossing market outside of North America, the film has amassed $70.2 million as of 31 December 2018 and has become the sixth-highest grossing foreign film in South Korean history with more than 9.35 million tickets sold and is the most successful music film ever released in South Korea."
No. It's a fairly poorly-made film, honestly. It's popular but it really shouldn't have been in the conversation as a "Best Film"...
The producers were the ones that picked up the award, Graham King and Jim Beach. King did all the talking, Beach said nothing.
Lets not forget who's handing out these awards, the Hollywood foreign press. They tend to lean to pictures/actors from outside the United States. (See Pia Zadora and her best actress award) When they announced Bohemian Rhapsody as best picture, the first thing I thought was what they had thought about a film like Black Panther. A story originating from a comic book, that had a pretty big cultural impact here in the States. I know they're not real big on the comic book angle.
I thought Black Panther was disappointingly average, even for an MCU film, and ridiculously overrated.
I found that one to be quite a depressing movie. Star with issues meets woman, helps woman to become a star, original star tops himself. I didn't particularly like the music much either. It was actually a fairly poor year for movies overall IMO, though some were alright... Bohemian Rhapsody was entertaining, but that was more because of the source material (music, and who it was based on). Mandy was a good movie. Green Book was a decent, enjoyable movie. I'd recommend that one. Avengers Infinity War was entertaining. A decent MCU movie. Leave No Trace was alright. Annihilation was good, though the ending was a bit of a let down. Creed II was alright, but the first one was better. Solo: A Star Wars Story was at the bottom of the Star Wars pile along with Attack of The Clones and The Phantom Menace. Other than that, most films I saw this year were just so-so, or outright terrible (Hereditary was dire. But then horror movies rarely do it for me anyway). There's still some I'm yet to see. Mission Impossible Fallout (but you know what to expect with that), Spider-Man - Into the Spider-verse.
Roma won best foreign film and best director so I think it has a very good chance of an Oscar upset. The drama and comedies musicals are not split there.
Obvious but just in case some are confused: A Biographical feature is a fictionalized, dramatic account of someones life story, played by actors, scripted all the way through. The emphasis here is on fiction not reality. The purpose is to create a compelling drama, not to re-create reality. Docu- dramas are basically documentaries that uses actors to re-create reality. A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record.
(apology if my definition assumptions are not the same as yours) The former would include movies like Shakespeare in Love, that Beethoven move that was out about the same time (not the dog), and probably Amadeus. No pretense to be accurate so have artistic freedom. I like documentaries. Docu-dramas (like Bohemian Rhapsody) are too much in the middle - trying to be both but are neither. BTW - I would never have guessed in a million years that the movie would do so well.
And a musical tells a story through the characters singing, which is why BR was not considered a musical.