Get ready for Beatlemania. A long-gestating, highly-anticipated four-film Beatles biopic saga from director Sam Mendes has officially landed on a cast of rising stars play the four Brits who made up the biggest-selling music act of all time.
At CinemaCon in Las Vegas, Mendes finally announced the official cast for his Beatles films: Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr. The four actors joined Mendes onstage at the event, recited lyrics from the Beatles song “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and then took a synchronized Beatles-esque bow.
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The ambitious project is officially called The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event. Why four films? “We need big cinematic events to get people out of the house,” said Mendes.
The massive undertaking will be the first of its kind, with Sony calling it “the first binge-able theatrical experience.” But when’s it being released? And who else can we expect to see in the film? Here’s everything we know about this massive Beatles project.
Wait: Sam Mendes is making four separate Beatles movies?
That’s right. Each member of The Beatles is getting his own feature film. The Oscar-winning director behind American Beauty and Skyfall said “the story was too huge to fit into a single movie;” hence the decision to give each band member their own standalone. “We’re not just making one film about the Beatles — we’re making four,” said Mendes at Cinemacon. “Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply.”
All four films will have exclusive rights to the Beatles’ massive music catalogue, making it the first narrative feature to access hits like “Strawberry Fields,” “Let It Be,” “I Am the Walrus,” “Yellow Submarine,” and plenty of others.
“Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary,” reads the logline for the project.
Who’s playing whom?
For months, rumors flew about four up and coming stars who were circling the roles of Paul, John, Ringo, and George… and those rumors turned out to be mostly correct. Harris Dickinson, the 28-year-old Brit who recently starred opposite Nicole Kidman in A24’s Babygirl, will front the band as the legendary John Lennon. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Dickinson skirted around the potential of him playing Lennon, saying that “it would be a really interesting role.”
