Sam Mendes Is Making Four Separate Beatles Movies About John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr
The Beatles have granted the rights to their life stories and music for a feature film for the first time ever for ‘Skyfall’ director Sam Mendes
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Sam Mendes is bringing the Fab Four to the big screen — one note at a time.
On Tuesday, the 1917 director, Sony Pictures and Neal Street Productions announced that Mendes, 58, will direct four intersecting feature films that tell the story of each of the four members of The Beatles — Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — through each band member’s perspective.
The movies are expected to release worldwide in 2027, with a press release noting that the project is the first time Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles have granted the rights to their life stories and music for a feature length film.
“I’m honored to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” Mendes said in a statement Tuesday.
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“We intend this to be a uniquely thrilling, and epic cinematic experience: four films, told from four different perspectives which tell a single story about the most celebrated band of all time,” Pippa Harris, Mendes’ production partner at Neal Street, added in a statement. “To have The Beatles’ and Apple Corps’ blessing to do this is an immense privilege.”
Aspects of The Beatles’ story have been put to screen before, with movies like 2009’s Nowhere Boy bringing Lennon and the band’s teenage years in Liverpool, England to life. Aaron Taylor-Johnson portrayed Lennon, who died in 1980 at age 40, in that film, while Thomas Brodie-Sangster portrayed McCartney, 81.
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Audiences received a long-awaited inside glimpse at the iconic rock band in its final years with Peter Jackson’s 2021 Disney+ documentary Get Back, which utilized archival footage to depict the weeks that Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr spent writing, recording and rehearsing songs for the group’s 1970 album Let It Be.
No casting announcements have yet been made for any of the four films now in development.
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