Sam Mendes is set to direct four new The Beatles biopics, one for each member of the band.
The project is the first time that Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the estates of George Harrison and John Lennon have granted full life story and rights for a scripted movie, and the first time their record label, Apple Corp, has given full music rights.
Mendes, best known for helming movies like American Beauty, Skyfall, and 1917, will direct all four "intersecting" biopics. Each of the films will get theatrical releases in 2027 and Sony, the studio behind the series, promises that the release schedule will be "innovative" and "groundbreaking."
"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," the director said in a statement.
The Beatles, who formed in 1960 in Liverpool, England, released 12 albums over the course of the following decade and became known as one of the most influential bands of all time. Lennon was murdered in 1980 and Harrison died of cancer in 2001, while McCartney and Starr are both still making music independently. No casting information has been revealed yet, so we don't know who'll be playing the Fab Four in the upcoming movies.
The most recent Beatles project to make it to the screen was Get Back, a documentary series, directed by Peter Jackson for Disney Plus, about the making of the band's final album, Let it Be. Other biopics have been made about individual band members, such as 2009's Nowhere Boy, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, about Lennon's teenage years.
While we wait for The Beatles biopic quartet to hit the big screen, check out our picks of the biggest upcoming movies on the way in 2024.
