But have no fear, says producer Pippa Harris of the unprecedented project (which, one assumes, will encompass at least six hours of screen time), nobody expects moviegoers to sit through all four films at once—unless they really want to.
“The idea at the moment is the films will come out in 2028, and we want people to be able to experience them in the cinema at the same, during the same period,” explained Harris at the BFI London Film Festival, as quoted by Variety. Harris even provides potential moviegoing strategies, suggesting, “So within the same month, you might see one a week, or you might see one one weekend and two the next and one the next. However you see it, I think our hope is that people will see all four films.”
Still, that’s a lot of screen time (and four separate admissions) for fans to deal with, something Harris says will be well worth the investment. She promises the films “stand alone as individual stories of each of those four men, but they have a cumulative power, which I think is greater than the sum of the parts.”
It’s a bold move for Mendes, Harris, and co-screenwriters Jez Butterworth, Peter Straughan, and Jack Thorne. Then again, public fascination with The Beatles, both together and as individuals, has hardly waned over the six decades since the band formed in Liverpool. As Harris states, “The Beatles are simply, I think, the greatest band in history and we’re trying trying to do our best to do them justice, hence the four films. I don’t think there’s another band that you could legitimately say you wanted to see four films about.”
Keep scrolling for more great stories.