Sam Mendes to direct four Beatles films (yes, one by Beatle)
This four-part mega-biopic is announced for 2027.
It’s the madness of musical biopics. After Bohemian Rhapsody And Elvisit’s the turn of Bob Marley: one Love to be a hit at the cinema these days, while waiting for films in the works on Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees, Bob Dylan played by Timothée Chalamet…
The Beatles being what they are (the greatest group of all time), they needed a project of their proportions: Deadline has just announced that English director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Sky Fall, 1917…) plans to shoot no less than four films about them. Four, yes, as in “four boys in the wind.” Like the addition of John, Paul, George and Ringo. One by Beatles.
“I know I speak for all my colleagues at Sony Pictures around the world when I say: yeah! yeah! yeah!”, exclaims Sony CEO Tom Rothman, humming the chorus of She Loves You. Before specifying: “Cinematic events these days must be cultural earthquakes. This is what Sam Mendes’ immense and audacious vision offers us.” “We want to deliver a unique, exciting and epic cinematic experience.”, teases Pippa Harris, who will produce the films with Mendes. The four films will be told from four different points of view but their stories will be “interconnected”explain Deadlineand in the service of the same story.
Argylle: how Matthew Vaughn hid an unreleased Beatles song for eight months
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving Beatles, as well as the families of John Lennon and George Harrison, will give Sony access to their musical catalog. This super-conceptual biopic comes as the Beatles have recently been in the news a lot thanks to the documentary being put online on Disney+ The Beatles: Get Backsigned Peter Jackson, a mind-blowing dive into images from the album’s recording sessions Let It Bein January 1969. The group also released a new song late last year, Now and Thenwhich we can hear these days at the cinema in the film Argyle by Matthew Vaughn, and which ended up at the top of the British charts. A hit, an unexpected and exciting cinema project… Not bad for a group separated for 54 years.