Sam Mendes announces Beatles biopics’ release date, cast

by Lucia Caporalini

After months of speculation, Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes finally announced on Monday a release date and the cast for his biopics about legendary band The Beatles.

Speaking from the stage at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, Mendes presented his latest project and announced its release for April 2028.

“We’re not just making one film about the Beatles – we’re making four,” Mendes explained. 

“Perhaps this is a chance to understand them a little more deeply.”

“There had to be a way to tell the epic story for a new generation,” the director added. 

“I can assure you there is still plenty left to explore and I think we found a way to do that,” he said. 

A ‘bingeable theatrical experience’

Each of the four installments will focus on one different member of the Beatles: “They intersect in different ways – sometimes overlapping, sometimes not,” Mendes clarified.

The films will all be shot over one year, and then be released at once in April 2028.

It has not been confirmed yet whether this means all four movies will be released on the same day or over the course of the month. 

Mendes described the event as “the first bingeable theatrical experience,” commenting, “Frankly, we need big cinematic events to get people out of the house.”

The Fab Four in the flesh

Mendes was joined on stage by the four actors chosen to interpret the Fab Four. 

British actor Harris Dickinson, who starred in the critically acclaimed boxing drama film ‘The Iron Claw’, has been chosen for the role of John Lennon. 

London-born actor Joseph Quinn, of ‘Stranger Things’ fame, will play George Harrison. 

Irish actors Paul Mescal (‘Gladiator II’, ‘Aftersun’, ‘Normal People’) and Barry Keoghan (‘Dunkirk’, ‘The Killing of a Sacred Deer’, ‘Saltburn’) are set to play Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, respectively. 

These casting choices do not come as a surprise – all four actors had already been heavily tipped on social media and entertainment websites as the new Beatles. 

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During the promotion of ‘Gladiator II’, director Ridley Scott had accidentally confirmed Mescal’s casting in the project, saying: “Paul is actually stacked up, doing the Beatles next.”

And Ringo Starr also hinted at Barry Keoghan’s casting, telling Entertainment Weekly: “I believe he’s somewhere taking drum lessons, and I hope not too many.”

However, not everyone was happy about the announcement: “I was hoping for four fresh faces instead of more established actors.”

“Would have been a neat symmetry that four unknown but talented lads from Liverpool would become global superstars just like the Beatles. But alas, Hollywood doesn’t work that way,” one user wrote on Reddit. 

Now and Then

Sam Mendes’ tetralogy will be one of many films, TV shows and documentaries about the Beatles released over the last 50 years. 

Sam Taylor-Johnson’s ‘Nowhere Boy’ (2009), starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson in the role of John Lennon, was one of the most successful retellings of the blossoming friendship between Lennon and McCartney, following the early days of the band, up until its Hamburg debut. 

Most recently, the band was depicted in Joe Stephenson’s ‘Midas Man’ (2024), a film on the life of the Beatles’ first and only manager, entrepreneur Brian Epstein. 

On this occasion, the actors chosen to interpret the Fab Four were newcomers. 

Famed directors such as Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, and Peter Jackson have all worked on Beatles documentaries. 

However, Mendes’ project marks the first time a biopic on the band has actually been approved by McCartney and Starr and by the families of Lennon and Harrison. 

In fact, they have even agreed for music and story rights to be used for the film. 

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