“I can assure you there is still plenty left to explore and I think we found a way to do that”: On-screen Fab Four actors and release plan confirmed

So... we now know the identities of the four actors who will play the lead roles in the upcoming Sam Mendes-directed Beatles biopics.

Mendes appeared on stage with his on screen fab four at CinemaCon, an annual event for the movie industry last night in Las Vegas. He also confirmed that all four biopics will be out in the same month: April 2028. Those few weeks look likely to be busy ones for Beatles fans (of which there are just a few) and potentially lucrative ones for cinema chains around the world.

So the band consists of Harris Dickinson, who joins an illustrious line of actors including Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ian Hart (twice!) to have played John Lennon; Paul Mescal, who as predicted by many is Paul; Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn is George, and as already know (because Ringo himself inadvertently broke the news last year) Barry Keoghan plays the drummer.

“We’re not just making one film about the Beatles – we’re making four,” Mendes said at CinemaCon. “Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply.”

He explained that he had been trying to make a film about the Beatles “for years, but I finally gave up”. The “story was too big for one film” and he didn’t want to make a television series.

“There had to be a way to tell the epic story for a new generation,” he told the audience, adding: “I can assure you there is still plenty left to explore and I think we found a way to do that.”

On stage, the four actors recited a line or two from Sgt Pepper’s’ title track: “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.”

Things We Said Today (Remastered 2009) - YouTube

Watch On

Mendes’ project is certainly ambitious. For one thing the Beatles’ story is now so well known that you’d think every possible angle has already been covered.

Previous biopics have concentrated on one part of the story – the Hamburg years (Backbeat) or the relationship between Brian Epstein and Lennon (The Hours and The Times) – and been reasonably successful within that remit.

Does Mendes attempt to tell the whole story in each of the four films, risking repetition (and audience boredom)? In any case isn’t the Beatles’ thirteen-year career too unwieldy, complex and multi-layered to cram into a two-hour running time?

I guess we shall see. Meanwhile, one wonders if the public fascination and craving for all things Beatles will ever be sated? Arriving nearly 60 years after their final split, these biopics are unlikely to be the final word...