He’s directed two Bond movies, toyed with one-take World War action, and continued to dabble in his first love: theatre. But Sam Mendes has taken on a new challenge now, making not one but four biopics on The Beatles. Looks like it’s going to be more than a few hard days’ nights for the Oscar winner.
Putting the spotlight on each of the four bandmates, Mendes officially confirmed the casting for The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. And he was joined with the trendiest men in the British and Irish film industry right now. Spoiler: none of them are Liverpool boys.
When were The Beatles biopics announced?
News of Mendes’s musical tetralogy first broke out in February 2024 when it was announced that the British director would helm four separate films, each focusing on a member of the Beatles. Casting rumours followed shortly, but it was only on Day 1 of CinemaCon that Mendes officially brought out his Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Who plays the Fab Four?
To give adequate runtime to each Beatle, all four actors will front their own biopic. Paul Mescal is expected to bring his doe-eyed charm to Paul McCartney, while Harris Dickinson is roped in as John Lennon. Mescal’s Gladiator II co-star Joseph Quinn will make George Harrison’s guitar gently weep, with Barry Keoghan on the drums as Ringo Starr.
While the quartet has made critically acclaimed turns in the past few years, The Beatles will be their most ambitious project yet. Mescal might have turned Gladiator II into a musical with that memorable SNL sketch, but playing McCartney will be a new challenge, considering how the south-pawed bassist has hardly ever been fictionalised before.
John Lennon, on the other hand, has had the biopic treatment before as an angsty teen in the Aaron Taylor-Johnson-led Nowhere Boy. To get into Lennon’s skin, Harris Dickinson is bound to ditch his usual buzzcut and baby mullet look and grow out his hair (or will a wig be needed?). The last time the Babygirl star played a real-life figure was as blond wrestler David Von Erich in The Iron Claw.
As for Harrison, Joseph Quinn seems like a great pick considering his Metallica riffs on the six-stringer in Stranger Things. It seems like the Harrison biopic will be his next project after playing the Human Torch in Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Barry Keoghan, whose workload seems to have doubled since his twisted turn in Saltburn, is an entertaining choice for Ringo. While the drummer has often been relegated to titles like the ‘funniest Beatle’ and ‘not even the best drummer in the Beatles’, Keoghan’s affinity for playing morally complex characters can hopefully unveil a new side to the Octopus’s Garden songwriter.
Who else stars in the movie?
The latest casting announcement comes from October 31 with Sony revealing all four actresses who would be playing the significant love interests of each Beatle. Anna Sawai, Saoirse Ronan, Mia McKenna-Bruce and Aimee Lou Wood are confirmed to star as Yoko Ono, Linda Eastman, Maureen Cox, and Pattie Boyd.
Emmy-winner Sawai has already made her mark on television with her breakout performance in Shogun and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. This time around, she will be starring as Lennon’s second wife and creative partner Yoko Ono whom Lennon met first at a London exhibition.
Much like Sawai, Sex Education and The White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood would similarly be making the leap from the streaming space to blockbuster territory. Wood is cast as George Harrison’s model wife Pattie Boyd who first met the guitarist on sets of the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night. The couple were known to have shared a common interest in Eastern spirituality and mysticism.
Saoirse Ronan continues the biopics’ Irish casting trends starring opposite Paul Mescal’s Paul McCartney. Having dabbled in biographical roles earlier in Mary, Queen of Scots, Ammonite and The Outrun, the four-time Oscar nominee stars as the late Linda Eastman, a celebrated photographer who also played the keyboard for McCartney’s post-Beatles troupe Wings.
Lastly, newcomer Mia McKenna-Bruce will be seen as Maureen Cox, a hairdresser from Liverpool and one of the Beatles’ earliest fans. She struck up a quick friendship with Ringo Starr at the Cavern Club in 1962 and later married him in 1965. McKenna-Bruce won immense acclaim for her lead act in the 2023 coming-of-age drama How to Have Sex for which she also won a BAFTA Rising Star Award.
Sony is yet to announce the actor who will be playing the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein (even though James Norton is the bookies' favourite who previously also played a music exec in Bob Marley: One Love).
Other confirmed characters whose actors are still not announced include Lennon’s first wife Cynthia Lennon, George Harrison’s friend and sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, and the band’s longtime producer George Martin (aka the ‘Fifth Beatle’).
Will The Beatles movies be standalone chapters?
Mendes confirmed at CinemaCon that each film will be told from a particular member’s perspective, overlapping in a few moments. ‘They're four very different human beings. Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply,’ adds the 1917 director. He further explained that he went ahead with the four-film treatment because the band’s story ‘is too huge to fit in a single movie’ and ‘turning it into a TV miniseries just somehow didn't feel right’.
What sets Sam Mendes’s biopics apart from previous Beatles films?
The band dabbled in all sorts of concert films and psychedelic animations in their time, and have continued to inspire epic-length documentaries such as Peter Jackson’s Get Back. But Mendes’ biopics are the first projects to gain full life story and music rights from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison.
Will Mendes bring his old band back together?
Considering Mendes’s past few releases, there are high chances for Roger Deakins to return as cinematographer. The silver-haired lenser has worked with Mendes on five films so far, including Skyfall and 1917 (which won him an Oscar). It’s uncertain if Mendes will rely on original music given that he would have no dearth of Beatles tunes. But if his biopics do need a score, the choice might come down to nine-time collaborator Thomas Newman or Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, the duo he took on for his last film Empire of Light. In the editing department, Lee Smith might be roped in having worked with Mendes on his last three films.
When will The Beatles be released?
Beatlemaniacs will have to wait for nearly three years as the four Beatles biopics will open in cinemas in April 2028. The films will reportedly be released ‘in proximity’ to each other.
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