As has been reported, this is the first project for which the Apple Corps Ltd. and The Beatles (Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr—maybe you’ve heard of ’em) have granted their full life-story rights. The gimmick for the biopic is, of course, that it’s four different biopics from each band member’s perspective that intersect to tell the story of the biggest musical phenomenon of the 20th century. The trades are currently reporting that it’s unknown whether the three scribes are writing the four movies together or separately. However, there is a clue floating around out there on the Internet.
In October 2024, Straughan gave an interview to Deadline where he seems to have said a little too much, revealing that he was one of the writers on the project. Given that Sony Pictures probably wasn’t ready for that info to be out there, that bit of the interview was apparently scrubbed from Deadline‘s website. However, it was preserved by World Of Reel:
“I’m doing a biopic with Sam Mendes. Sam’s doing four Beatles biopics, and I’m doing George Harrison […] We’re being firewalled off from each other, and Sam is in the middle. I don’t really think any of us know exactly how it’s going to work. I think the idea is that, because we’ve been isolated, we will tell the story in four very different ways from the point of view of our characters.”
In fairness, the approach could’ve changed since then; screenplays usually go through at least a few rounds of edits, so later drafts could’ve been less siloed and more collaborative. Plus, we’ve only got three writers for four projects here, so is one writer taking on more than one Beatle, or is one script more collaborative than the others? (Perhaps Mendes, a writer on his own films 1917 and Empire Of Light, could be taking on one of the scripts.) There are still a lot of unknowns, but this slip of the tongue gives us an idea of what’s going on behind the scenes. It’s an ambitious project that will continue to draw a lot of attention, so hopefully this crew can pull it off. The films are slated for release in April 2028.
