Nearly two years since we first heard tell of the project, Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson has shared a glimpse of his upcoming Beatles documentary, Get Back. Culled from roughly 56 hours of never-before-seen footage—“Great stuff,” Jackson says—the documentary looks to be a looser, more upbeat look at the band’s final years. It serves as a counterpart to Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 film, Let It Be, and features unseen footage recorded by the director during the recording of the band’s 1970 swan song.
“There were hours and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the version that came out,” said Ringo Starr in a press release. “There was a lot of joy and I think Peter will show that. I think this version will be a lot more peace and loving, like we really were.”
In the below clip, Jackson says the documentary would be finished by now if not for COVID-19. “The only good thing really, is that we are editing the movie in New Zealand, now that our country has largely stamped out the virus we are able to come back into the cutting room and carry on with the editing we are doing,” he adds, making us seethe with jealousy.
What you’ll see below isn’t a trailer or sequence, he notes, but a “montage” that he says offers “a sense of the spirit of the film we’re making.”
Check it out below:
The Beatles: Get Back arrives on August 27, 2021.