Sam Mendes showed up toward the end of Sony‘s CinemaCon presentation to reveal details of how his four Beatles movies will go down. All four will come out in April 2028 in what is the first “bingeable moment in cinema” said Mendes (Sony Motion Pictures Boss Tom Rothman’s words). Mendes also confirmed the cast, which we all know: George Harrison is Joseph Quinn, Paul Mescal is Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan is Ringo Starr and Harris Dickinson is John Lennon.
Mendes wouldn’t confirm which order the movies would rollout. He also mentioned that it would take him more than year to shoot all four movies. “I’m getting Avatar flashbacks” Rothman jokingly cried.
Said Mendes, the Beatles “redefined the culture and stayed with you for a lifetime,” calling them perhaps “the most significant band of all time.”
“I had been trying to do a film for years, but I finally gave up” because he felt the “story was too big for one film” and a TV series didn’t seem quite right. “There had to be a way to tell the epic story for a new generation … I can assure you there is still plenty left to explore and I think we found a way to do that.”
The actors then quoted “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” saying “It’s wonderful to be here, it’s certainly a thrill, you’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home with us.”
Deadline was first to report on the quartet of castings over a year ago, noting that Mendes conceived the grand vision of interconnected stories, one from each band member’s point of view.
The official logline for The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event is: “Each man has his own story, but together they are legendary.” Mendes, Pippa Harris and Julie Pastor of Neal Street will produce along with Alexandra Derbyshire in association with Apple Corps for Sony Pictures.
