FOUR Interconnected Beatles Biopics Are Set To Release In 2027 Directed By Sam Mendes
DEADLINE- EXCLUSIVE: In a move that ought to make fans of The Beatles twist and shout, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Oscar-winning filmmaker Sam Mendes and his Neal Street Productions have set plans to make four separate theatrical films, one on each of the members of music’s most famous and enduring band.
Mendes will direct all four of the films, and this marks the first time Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles – Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison – have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.
Mendes conceived this grand vision. He’ll tell interconnected stories, one from each band member’s point of view. This is perhaps the most ambitious project Deadline has revealed exclusively since our break that Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman are teaming with SpaceX and NASA to shoot a narrative film in outer space. That complicated project is still on the launch pad at Universal, but plans are set here for SPE to finance and distribute worldwide with full theatrical windows in 2027. The dating cadence of the films will be revealed closer to the films’ release. I’m told they are locking down writers quickly.
All of this came about when Mendes pitched the project in Hollywood, and just about everyone flipped their mop-tops for it. SPE’s Tom Rothman and Elizabeth Gabler, who gravitate to the most ambitious and prestige stuff, sparked to the opportunity and won the package.
We're kicking off the day with some HUGE news from Deadline - Sam Mendes has signed on to direct FOUR interconnected Beatles biopics (one for each member of The Beatles) with full music rights, all set to release in 2027. It's the Beatles cinematic universe!
The Beatles are obviously the most popular and sacred band of all time to so many millions of people all over the world, so this is one hell of an undertaking. You've gotta have some biiiig balls to want to do this - whether you're a writer, director, or an actor involved in it. Either you nail it and deliver a few of the greatest music biopics of all time, or you shit the bed and "ruin more childhoods" than Rian Johnson, disgracing The Beatles memory. There's really no in-between.
Sam Mendes (American Beauty, 1917, Skyfall, Road to Perdition) being the guy at the helm of this project - and Paul/Ringo signing off on it - gives me a lot more faith than I would've had otherwise, but I'm still pretty cautiously optimistic here. They'll probably have to shoot all four movies simultaneously if they're all gonna be released in 2027, which is gonna make for a super chaotic production, and it's gotta be really difficult to make FOUR good movies at once. Double albums usually have enough good material for one album, you know what I mean?
Where do you even start as far as casting goes, too?! I think you gotta cast four unknowns as the band, but they better be fucking GREAT. You can't have a buncha bozos doing bad impressions in these movies - especially considering there's gonna be four of them, meaning we're likely gonna be spending a MINIMUM six hours with the cast. It's a very small target they gotta hit, but they gotta hit it.
Of course, I'll be rooting for the movies to do well, and hoping for the best - but it's just hard for me to fully buy in and get excited about something like this before seeing anything (or even knowing what time period they'll focus on). I'll be first in line for all four movies, though!
Here's the Beatles scene from Walk Hard to hold ya over til then....
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P.S. It's gonna be real sad when the box office numbers come out and Ringo's performs the worst. Poor Ringo.