Kiwi takes on Freddy Mercury movie

The late Freddie Mercury (File).

Oscar-nominated New Zealand screenwriter Anthony McCarten is now involved in the long-delayed biopic of Freddy Mercury.

McCarten, who won a Bafta and an Academy Award nomination for his Stephen Hawking movie, The Theory of Everything, has been been hired to give Peter Morgan's original script a complete revamp.

The film is reportedly finally set to move into production next year after years of postponements.

The news comes two years after comedian Sacha Baron Cohen bowed out of plans to portray the flamboyant Queen frontman due to creative differences with the band's surviving members.

Spectre and Skyfall actor Ben Whishaw was subsequently tapped to take over the role and he reportedly remains producers' top pick to play Mercury when cameras start rolling in 2016.

British musician and actor Johnny Flynn is said to have signed on as a young Roger Taylor, while another Bond alumni, Quantum of Solace's Gemma Arterton, will play Freddie's former lover, Mary Austin, according to Tracking-Board.com.

A replacement for director Dexter Fletcher, who departed the project in early 2014, is yet to be announced.

Tentatively titled Bohemian Rhapsody, the film was originally scheduled for a 2012 release.

Queen guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor insist they are in "no rush" to get the picture made.

"It seems that the wheels turn very slowly in the film world," Taylor told Britain's The Independent newspaper earlier this year.

"They turn a lot quicker in the musical world. But I have to say, Brian and I are in absolutely no rush. We're not bothered. We just want it to be right."

Anthony McCarten (Getty).

The rocker also opened up about Sacha's exit from the film, insisting it was the right move for the project. "In the end, we felt that Sacha, brilliant, subversive comedian though he is, wasn't really at heart an actor," he explained. "We didn't want to make it funny. We wanted a brilliant actor who was going to move people in both directions, to tears and laughter and joy. We didn't really feel in the end that he was right. We wanted an amazingly good actor in the purest sense."

Mercury died from an AIDS-related illness in 1991 at the age of 45.