The release strategy for Sam Mendes’ Beatles quartet has changed, with the four films set to be released a week apart in 2028. Update: When they were announced three years ago, Sam Mendes’ quartet of films about The Beatles had a rather bold release strategy: a cinema roll-out on the same day. Would anyone but ... The Beatles | Sam Mendes’ four movies no longer set to appear in cinemas on the same day
The release strategy for Sam Mendes’ Beatles quartet has changed, with the four films set to be released a week apart in 2028.
Update: When they were announced three years ago, Sam Mendes’ quartet of films about The Beatles had a rather bold release strategy: a cinema roll-out on the same day. Would anyone but the most hardened of Fab Four fans go to see four movies about the same subject?
It now sounds as though there’s been a rethink. Producer Pippa Harris has offered an update on the films’ progress at the London Film Festival, saying that she’s currently on day 180 of a lengthy shoot.
Harris added that while she and Mendes wanted it to be cinema’s first “binegable moment,” The Beatles films will no longer be emerging all at once.
“Now that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re thinking that people will go and see all four films on the same day,” she said, as quoted by Deadline. “But within the same month, you might see one a week, or you might see one film one weekend and another the next. However you do it, we hope that people will see all four films.”
Each film will tell the same story from the perspective of each member of The Beatles, with Barry Keoghan playing Ringo Starr, Paul Mescal starring as Paul McCartney, Joseph Quinn essaying George Harrison and Harris Dickinson channelling the spirit of John Lennon.
“They stand alone as individual stories of each of those four men,” Harris said, “but they have a cumulative power, which I think is greater than the sum of the parts.”
The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event is schedule for release in cinemas in April 2028.
Our earlier story follows…
26th July 2024: Skyfall and 1917 director Sam Mendes has set himself the formidable task of making four back-to-back films about The Beatles – and according to a new report, he’s come up with a similarly novel approach to their release.
As reported by journalist Jeff Sneider (via World of Reel), Mendes recently told students at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts that he plans to have all four movies appear in cinemas on the same day.
Aside from Clue, the 1985 comedy mystery that had a different ending depending on which cinema you saw it in, this writer can’t recall another instance of multiple films from the same director releasing on the same day. Perhaps one of you wonderful readers can point out another precedent.
At the moment, it’s unclear whether Mendes’ plan lines up with Sony’s own release strategy – the only official line is that the four films are scheduled for release at some point in 2027, with production said to begin in mid-2025.
Each of Mendes’ four films will focus on a member of Britain’s most famous beat combo, with the rumour being that it’ll cover their 1970 break-up from each musician’s perspective. The cast hasn’t been confirmed yet, though Sneider, who evidently has a mole in Mendes’ operation somewhere, has previously said that Harris Dickinson will play John Lennon, Paul Mescal will strum a bass as Paul McCartney, Charlie Rowe’s guitar will gently weep as George Harrison, while Barry Keoghan is on drums as Ringo Starr.
That Mendes fancies the idea of releasing all four films at once adds weight to theory that they all deal with the same incident viewed from a different angle, Rashomon style. It’ll be fascinating to see how he goes about it.
