It’s hard to imagine a Beatles movie without thinking of the comedic masterpiece that is Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. In a key scene, John C. Reilly‘s fictional rock star Dewey meets the Fab Four—played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long, and Jason Schwarzman—during their spiritual phase. The dialogue is hilariously overly expository. Dewey says, for instance: “What do you think, George Harrison of The Beatles?” The Liverpool accents are terrible. Black’s McCartney and Rudd’s Lennon end up fighting. It’s all great.
This is all to say that the supposedly four—count ’em, four!—Beatles movies that Sony announced at CinemaCon last night have a lot to live up to. Obviously, what is being billed as The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event will be a lot more serious than Walk Hard. But the concept behind the films, all directed by Sam Mendes, is also sort of baffling. What, in actuality, are we getting ourselves into here? Here’s what we know, as well as what we don’t.
Who will be playing the members of the Beatles?
Are you a hot, youngish British or Irish actor? You might be playing a Beatle. The principal cast of the “cinematic event” is as follows: Harris Dickinson, the babygirl of Babygirl, will bring his soulful eyes and long face to the role of John Lennon. The Gladiator himself, Paul Mescal, will play another legendary Paul—Paul McCartney. Paul of the Beatles is a more jovial role than we’re used to seeing Mescal playing. Excited for him to smile! Joseph Quinn, the Stranger Things breakout who’s already joined another fab Four as Johnny Storm in this summer’s Fantastic Four, is George Harrison. And finally, as the former Richard Starkey himself spilled late last year, Barry Keoghan is Ringo. While Keoghan’s best known for an energy more menacing than Ringo’s—see Saltburn—he’s also got a goofy side, so that works.
So, wait—they’re making four Beatles movies?
Yes, each Beatle is getting his own Beatles movie. (No, there’s no Pete Best movie, as far as we know.) The tagline, which tries to justify this experiment, is “Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary.”
When are these movies coming out?
For now, they are all arriving in April 2028. Mendes, who said it would take him more than a year to shoot everything, called the project a “bingeable moment in cinema” at CinemaCon, which seems to imply that at some point true Beatlemaniacs will have the option to go to the movie theater and watch eight or so hours of Fab Four content in succession. (Mendes was parroting Sony chairman Tom Rothman with that “bingeable” comment, so that’s the official line.) Still, it’s unclear if “April 2028” means we’re getting one new Beatle movie a week for a month or whether they’ll all drop on the same day.
