- Written by Mark Savage and Stephen McIntosh
- entertainment reporter
image source, Getty Images
Apple Corps said the film “explores each Beatle’s unique story”
Director Sir Sam Mendes plans to make four separate films about the Beatles (one from the perspective of each band member).
Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison all granted permission and music rights to the four films.
“I’m honored to be able to tell the story of the greatest rock band of all time,” said the Oscar-winning director.
He added that he was “excited to challenge the concept of what a movie trip is.”
The film will be produced by Sony Pictures and Sir Sam’s Neal Street Productions and is scheduled to be released in theaters in 2027.
It’s unclear whether the four films will be released all at once or in stages, but Sony said it will adopt an “innovative release pace” and will make an announcement at a later date.
The project marks the first time that The Beatles and their company Apple Corp. have granted full rights to their life story and music for a scripted film, according to a statement.
Sir Sam has previously directed “1917,” “American Beauty,” “Revolutionary Road,” “Empire of Light,” and two James Bond films, “Skyfall” and “Spectre.” He has directed films such as.
The Beatles are widely regarded as the greatest British band of all time, thanks to a series of classic albums such as Rubber Soul, Revolver and the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road.
image source, Getty Images
Sir Sam Mendes (left) recently directed “Empire of Light,” starring Olivia Colman and Toby Jones.
Some of their most famous hits include Yesterday, Hey Jude, A Hard Day’s Night, Eight Days a Week, Let It Be, Come Together, Here Comes the Sun, Twist and Shout, Love Me Do, and Help!
Most of their songs were written by Lennon and McCartney. Harrison is often said to have been frustrated that the songs he wrote were not receiving equal recognition from his bandmates.
Last year, the Beatles released what has been described as their “last song.” The first bar, titled “Now and then”, was written by John Lennon in his 1978, but advances in software allowed the remaining band members to extract his vocals from a rough demo cassette. I wasn’t able to complete it until now.
The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in November, making the Beatles the band with the longest gap between their first and last number one.
Apple Corps said the four new films “explore each Beatle’s unique story and bring them together in a suitably engaging and innovative way.”
Producer Dame Pippa Harris said: “We intend this to be a thrilling and epic cinematic experience like no other, and we’re thrilled to have the Beatles and Apple Corp’s blessing on this. It’s an unknown privilege,” he said.
The Beatles were no strangers to the silver screen, starring in several of their own films in the 1960s, from the reckless comedy A Hard Day’s Night to the surreal psychedelic Yellow Submarine.
After disbanding, they released a number of films, from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (a disastrously flamboyant musical starring the Bee Gees) to the moving coming-of-age tale I Wanna Hold Your Hands. It inspired ten full-length tributes.
The latter follows a group of teenagers who attempt to attend a seminal Beatles performance on Ed Sullivan’s TV show, and marks the directorial debut of Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis. became. And he’s not the only big-name manager to be seduced by the Fab Four’s charm.
image source, Getty Images
The Beatles are widely considered the greatest British band of all time
Peter Jackson’s epic four-part documentary Get Back recycled footage shot during the recording of the band’s last album. Martin Scorsese put together a revelatory documentary about the “quiet Beatle” George Harrison in 2011. Meanwhile, Sam Taylor-Johnson dramatized John Lennon’s childhood in the stark but compelling Nowhere Boy.
Danny Boyle’s Yesterday imagined a world where everyone forgot about the Beatles and took credit for every song, except for one struggling musician (lots of laughter). .
The band’s music was also used as the backdrop for Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe, a 1960s romantic comedy in which Bono, sporting a very strange mustache, sings “I Am the Walrus.” It was done. It wasn’t very, very good.
Perhaps the best of them is 1994’s Backbeat. This is an independent film that tells the story of the Beatles’ time in Hamburg, before they became famous. By focusing primarily on the story of the band’s original bassist, Stuart Sutcliffe, it was unencumbered by the enormous cultural baggage of the band’s subsequent work.
Coincidentally, Backbeat was based on a book by music journalist Alan Clayson, which was later published as a four-volume box set, telling the story of the Beatles from the perspective of each band member. Sound familiar?
That said, Clayson’s unauthorized biography, which includes stories of infidelity and drug use, is unlikely to be the starting point for a Mendes movie rubber-stamped by the all-powerful Beatles Corporation.
But if there’s any lesson to be learned from these books, it’s that George Harrison and Ringo Starr’s books are far more persuasive. It’s simply because we’re not so used to how the story unfolds.
Perhaps the biggest question is whether Mendes can fix the Beatles movies so that they sync up when played at the same time, like The Wizard of Oz or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Or so I guess.
Because it’s really worth the ride. Or four.
