Forget a hard day’s night; Sam Mendes is about to embark on a hard years-long journey. The Oscar-winner will direct four biopics about the biggest band in music history, The Beatles. Mendes and his Neal Street Productions partner with Sony Entertainment Pictures on this highly ambitious joint venture. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison are all getting their own movies, each focusing on one member of The Beatles and their tale. The four-connected features will also mark the first time anyone has ever had the full scripted rights to each musician’s life story and music.
No casting news has yet been confirmed, but The Sun has reported that Stranger Things and The Fantastic Four actor Joseph Quinn may have been cast as George Harrison. Of course, The Sun is not always the most reliable source, so we will have to wait and see.
Neal Street Productions announced (in news first shared by Deadline) that it’s launching a four-film Beatles biopic project. Apple Corps Ltd./The Beatles, along with surviving members McCartney and Starr and the families of both the late John Lennon and George Harrison—have granted “full life story and music rights” for the movies. Each of the connected films will follow the point-of-view of one of The Beatles’ iconic members. Deadline says the search for screenwriters for each movie has already begun, and the project hopes to find its scribes quickly.
The entire idea for the project came from Mendes himself. “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,” said the director in a statement.
Tom Rothman, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures’ Motion Picture Group, also shared just how big this project will be. He said, “Theatrical movie events today must be culturally seismic. Sam’s daring, large-scale idea is that and then some. Pairing his premiere filmmaking team, with the music and the stories of four young men who changed the world, will rock audiences all over the globe. We are deeply grateful to all parties and look forward ourselves to breaking some rules with Sam’s uniquely artistic vision.”
The release schedule for these The Beatles movies sounds just as ambitious. Sony Pictures Entertainment is financing the movies and will distribute them worldwide “with full theatrical windows” in 2027. That might be when we get all of them. Neal Street Productions said “the dating cadence” of the four releases “will be innovative and groundbreaking.”
What does that possibly mean? The specific details of when these The Beatles biopic movies will release “will be shared closer to release,” so until then, all we can do is speculate. Could we get four different Beatles movies in a single year? Summer? Month? Week? Or what about a single day? If that were to happen, it would be a hard day’s night watching all four, but we know Beatles fans would be up for it.
Originally published on February 20, 2024.
