Sam Mendes' Beatles quadrilogy (2027)

[Bad Ambassador]

Sam Mendes has been announced as directing four films about the Beatles, one from each of the members' perspectives. Full music rights and family cooperation, as well as funding from Sony. Does this sound insane to anyone else?

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/beatles-movies-sam-mendes-directing-four-films-2027-release-1235916841/

Presumably they all team up in the last film to fight Phil Spector.

[Blumf]

Just the Beatles stuff, or will each be a more general bio pic? (i.e. stuff they did outside of/after the band)

[Goldentony]

hope this fails very badly and damages the Beatles reputation in the process unless they make this entire film about the creation of Carnival Of Light

[Huxleys Babkins]

Presumably they all team up in the last film to fight Phil Spector.

SPECTOR: You can't possibly defeat me! The Fab Four are now the finished four!

OFF-SCREEN: Make that the Fab Five!

SPECTOR: No! It cannot be! P-Pete Best!?

BEST: That's right, we saved the Best 'til last! Ultra Beatles... ASSEMBLE!!!

[madhair60]

the beatles cinematic universe LOL

you're gonna be seeing that joke a lot ^

[Jim_MacLaine]

To be honest I'd prefer a documentary on the Life and Times of Mal Evans.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

can't be arsed with any of this

[Goldentony]

Big Country are more deserving of this

[extraordinary walnuts]

STEVE PUNT

is

ERIC IDLE

in

"GEORGE"

[dead-ced-dead]

Martin Scorsese not long ago made a really great George Harrison documentary. I doubt this could add much.

Also, is ANYONE interested in a Ringo movie?

[BritishHobo]

The Beatles in the style of Arrested Development season 4. I hope the respective other three Beatles make very minimal appearances in each film, and whenever they do appear they're standing on the other side of the room, never sharing the frame, very clearly being cut in from a different day of shooting - or if they are in frame with Main Beatle they're filmed from behind, and clearly played by someone different to whoever's playing them in their own film.

[Memorex MP3]

Sam Mendes; I'm gonna predict that after a brief mainstream flurry of Beatlemania this negatively impacts the Beatles reputation permanently

[dead-ced-dead]

I imagine part of the appeal here is they'll share a production, so Avatar and Lord of the Rings, they'll save money on the individual film by budgeting it like it's one giant production.

Same for award seasons, each main Beatle can put up "FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION" both as lead and supporting across each others movies.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Also, is ANYONE interested in a Ringo movie?

They were pretty popular in Japan.

[Mr Trumpet]

Post credits sequence teasing the future Cilla Black biopic

[Pete23]

According to that article each film will tell one of their stories "leading up to their 1970 breakup", so nothing after. Assuming they don't put the focus on their school days, surely a big chunk of each fim will be exactly the same?

[dead-ced-dead]

There are communities like to make fan edits and cobble together edits from deleted scenes, sequels and excise things they think "wronged" franchises (think a lot of dweebs who really take against the Star Wars sequels and prequels).

This will go down a treat on those sites. There'll be a lot of "ultimate cuts" out there soon after the digital release.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

No Thomas the Tank Engine?

[Shaxberd]

Perhaps each film will focus on a different section of their career - one person gets the Quarrymen and Hamburg years, another gets Beatlemania, one gets psychedelia and the last one gets the bit where they all hate each other.

Or perhaps all four films will be screened at the same time in purpose built mega-theatres, sometimes joining up in a beautiful panorama and sometimes having something going on only on one screen while the other three have a nap/read a book/tap away at the piano etc.

Or maybe it's a Rashomon thing and we'll find they all blame each other for sneezing on John's sandwich or something.

[Memorex MP3]

Probably partially about gathering a fuckton of footage of a band endorsed biopic before the other two die. Could easily see this shifting forms several times during production. A single major film and subsequent series seems very possible

[Norton Canes]

Is it really this easy to make money from Beatles fans?

[Norton Canes]

Maybe each film really is just going to be from each band member's perspective. Like, exactly the same film, but shot from four different angles.

[George White]

Where's the fifth one - 'He Turned Round And Said'...

[non capisco]

The Ringo one is going to be a Chantal Akerman style slow cinema real time account of the seven hours leading up to him recording 'Drumming Is My Madness'.

[non capisco]

The Paul one solely deals with the events of the day when he came up with the 'Meat Free Mondays Dot Com' rap.

Inevitable tagline : YOU CAN WATCH IT RIGHT NOW PLEASE

[dissolute ocelot]

Richard Curtis to make four movies, about what if each of the individual Beatles didn't exist.

It was bad enough when everybody was making films about Bob Dylan in the mid 00s (I'm Not There, No Direction Home, Masked and Anonymous, Factory Girl, ...). At least they had a bit of variety.

And the idea of it finishing in 1970 is stupid; 70s Lennon would be a great subject, I'm sure 70s Harrison would be interesting, and it's all less done-to-death than the story of the Fab Four themselves, which has already been covered in about 10000 movies. What about the story of the making of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Movie or one about Paul going vegetarian?

[QDRPHNC]

Turns out American Beauty wasn't the ultimate boomer wank fantasy.

[curiousoranges]

I just realised the New Testament is a quadrilogy. The bible in general could be the next expanded cinematic universe.

[SteveDave]

Allen Klein to be played by the reanimated corpse of the big man who played the main Soprano

[dissolute ocelot]

I just realised the New Testament is a quadrilogy. The bible in general could be the next expanded cinematic universe.

Someone called David Batty made a quadrilogy of movies of all four Gospels in the mid 2010s, in Aramaic. He also directed a life of Ian Paisley, Hitler in Colour, and the Michael Caine/1960s doc My Generation. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.