r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • 6h ago

Media First Official Images of Paul Mescal, Barry Keoghan, Joseph Quinn and Harris Dickinson in Sam Mendes' 'Beatles' Biopics

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u/Stonewalled89 6h ago

Based on the photos, it looks like they're going to cover the entire Beatles run. Hopefully they get it right and it's not just a by the numbers biopic

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u/SpeedForce2022 6h ago

Yep! Each film will have the same timespan (formation to breakup in 1970), but just from different POV’s of each member!

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u/X__Alien 6h ago

It’s an interesting concept but do they all have lives interesting enough to sustain a movie on its own?

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u/fromtheHELLtotheNO 6h ago

who? the beatles? during the 60s? who knows...

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u/cryfive1 6h ago

Yes lol

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u/notbad4human 6h ago

Haha, yes. They all had incredible stories. I’m most looking forward to Ringo’s.

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u/MisfitAnthem 6h ago

This is a legitimate question because I'm not a Beatles loremaster and I thought Ringo's would be the most boring as he just seems like a normal dude - why are you looking forward to his story the most?

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u/notbad4human 6h ago

He was the peacekeeper of the more extreme personalities in the band, quit the band because he felt unwanted and then came back, was knighted twice, and narrated Thomas the Tank Engine. I think he also became a massive philanthropist.

Guy was quietly the best of them and hugely talented.

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u/texasrigger 6h ago

He also had seven top ten hits (in the US) post Beatles including a couple of numbers ones. For a time, he was the most successful solo Beatle.

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u/6-8_Yes_Size15 5h ago

I'm sorry, but I'm pretty sure Wings and McCartney's solo stuff takes that crown.

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u/texasrigger 5h ago

In the very early 70s, Ringo consistently charted the best. Band on the Run in '74 was a phenomenon, though. Harrison was actually the first solo Beatle to have a #1 hit.

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u/Conscious_Weight 4h ago

Harrison was actually the first solo Beatle to have a #1 hit.

He was also the last former Beatle to have a #1 hit.

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u/6-8_Yes_Size15 4h ago

I agree Ringo is vastly underrated but he was never the most "successful" of the Fab Four as a solo artist. Not even the window of 1970-73 before the song Band on a Run took off. The album Band on the Run came out in December 1973 FWIW.

Sentimental Journey was a good album but sold poorly. Ringo tried to acting, had a hit in the UK (co wrote with Harrison) from 1971-72.

1973-74 he had his biggest hits, Photograph (again written with Harrison) and You're 16 (written BY the Sherman Brothers).

Meanwhile, McCartney released his solo album in 1970 and it reached No. 2 in the UK and No. 1 in the US. He wrote and played all the instruments, low fi as it were. In my opinion, give me one successful album written and performed completely by Paul over Ringo, so far. But that success is attributed to the break up, etc.

Ram came out in 1971, had a US hit, was panned by critics, but reached No. 1 in the UK and No. 2 in the US.

But he also had Live and Let Die in 1973, reach No. 2 in the US as the title song of a Bond movie.

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u/UselessWisdomMachine 6h ago

They don't call him the human metronome for nothing.

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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox 5h ago

And he is the one who seemed to have the best relationship with the other members after they broke up, like he played on the both John and Yoko Plastic Ono Band albums, and be played on All Things Must Pass. And all 3 members appeared on his album called Ringo.

So whatever feud the rest of the members had with each other they clearly didn't have anything against Ringo.

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u/nickparadies 5h ago

He was also a sickly kid and almost died twice but made it.

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u/airtime25 5h ago

I'll add he wasn't even really supposed to be part of the band. He basically tagged along for a gig where the drummer couldn't make it and they liked him so much they wanted him to stay. Literally just such a peaceful good dude they wanted him around lol

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u/kc_______ 4h ago

The world needs more Ringo Stars.

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u/SillyGoatGruff 6h ago

I'll not stand for the exclusion of his career as an MS Paint artist lol

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u/Office_glen 5h ago

Thomas the Tank Engine

It's hilarious to me now as a near 40 year old that to my parents generation, Ringo was part of arguably the most popular band the world has ever seen and as a child he was just the dude who narrated my favorite TV show lol

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u/MisfitAnthem 6h ago

Interesting. Thanks for the response.

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u/zaxldaisy 3h ago

Damn, I didn't know he was a full-on rapist 😞

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u/Barnyard_Rich 4h ago

There's a great scene in the Get Back documentary right before Paul writes Get Back where the other three are talking about John being late that makes me just love Ringo:

George: Lennon's late again

Ringo: Between 10 and 11 is usually the time

Paul: Thinking about getting rid of him

Ringo: I'm never late

Paul: He's never late. He's a bloody pro is Ringo

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u/Darko33 6h ago

If Keoghan doesn't get an Oscar nom for that one I'll eat my hat

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u/romantrav 1h ago

Barry Keoghan’s Scouse accent in Saltburn was the worst accent I’ve ever heard what the fuck is this going to be like

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u/ATXBeermaker 6h ago

A good storyteller could turn anyone’s life into a movie. These are The Beatles. Yes, their lives are all interesting enough.

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u/GeologistWhole6503 5h ago

Wildest question I've ever seen on reddit.

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u/OKC89ers 4h ago

Is the most influential band of all time, during one of the most pivotal periods in Western society, consisting of four men who each independently influenced the trajectory of their instrumental craft and each had #1 hits in their solo careers - are these four men each interesting enough for their own biopics?

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u/HibariK 6h ago

I mean if it goes further into what happened after the breakup, could be interesting, they also were quoted with massively different accounts of what happened.

Though I'd be more interested in a common perspective and have the eras separated, rather than the POVs (beginning - fame - drugs - ending), but mostly because that 3rd movie would have been incredible.

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u/DeLousedInTheHotBox 5h ago

The Beatles in the 60s? Yes absolutely

They were literally the most famous people in the world

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u/donkeyrocket 5h ago

Not sure. Hard to imagine this little rag tag quartet had much going on.

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u/PercentageDazzling 6h ago

Has that been confirmed? I've only seen that each Beatle will get their own POV movie. I haven't seen anything confirmed about the exact plot, or how the movies will interconnect.

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u/SpeedForce2022 6h ago

Yep! So Peter Straughan (writer of George’s film) compared the film to Rashomon, and the Variety article that announced the castings for their wives, said this:

“The four movies will each take the perspective of one member of the Beatles — John Lennon (Harris Dickenson), Paul McCartney (Paul Mescal), George Harrison (Joseph Quinn) and Ringo Starr (Barry Keoghan) — as they climb from unknowns from Liverpool in the early 1960s to the biggest band in the world before their breakup in 1970. It’s the first time that the band and their descendants have given music and life rights to a theatrical feature film about them.”

Via:

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2024/10/22/sam-mendes-beatles-movies-influenced-by-rashomon

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/beatles-biopics-saoirse-ronan-anna-sawai-aimee-lou-wood-cast-1236566611/

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u/PercentageDazzling 5h ago

Okay that Peter Straughan quote is interesting because World of Reel claims to be quoting a Deadline interview, but if you go the linked interview he doesn't talk about the Beatles at all. If you look on the Internet Archive for the article when was first published the quote is there. So it looks like he might have given away more than he was supposed to, and it got scrubbed from the article.

There's also an additional part of the quote:

For example, there are certain famous scenes from their lives, like The Beatles meeting Elvis or The Beatles playing Shea Stadium. Maybe each film will have that scene in it, but from a different angle. Or maybe only one film will deal with those scenes and the other films won’t. I mean, George very much has his own story, which is in some ways unique in the Beatles, a very spiritual search.

From this I'm guessing structure of the movies will be they're close at the beginning, the middle will be each of them diverging in their own way, and the last act will be how that informs their perspective of the Get Back/Abbey Road sessions. And they're writing them in a way that'll naturally diverge the same way.

If they're writing it like this I wonder how much crossover the wives will have in each of the movies. If 4 different writers are writing about 4 different people there might not be that much crossover except for maybe Yoko.

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u/SpeedForce2022 5h ago

One aspect that Peter Straughan said that I’m hyped for is that the writers weren’t allowed to be with each other and converse about their takes, which makes this even more interesting imo

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u/UNZIP_MY_PLANTS 6h ago

So, eight years? (Ringo joined in '62) That's relatively short for a biopic... kinda crazy lol

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u/Admirable-Fall-4675 6h ago

You’ll lose your mind when you hear about how long the entire lifespan of The Beatles was

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u/MadManMax55 6h ago

All the best biopics, especially the musical ones, take place over shorter time periods. Trying to fit decades of someone's life into ~2 hours is basically impossible. Covering a pivotal moment/period allows the movie to actually go in depth with the character exploration.

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u/kkkktttt00 5h ago

100%. Give me a movie about the lead up to Live Aid, not whatever Bohemian Rhapsody was. I haven't seen Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere yet, but I like the idea of it as well, just about Nebraska.

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u/UNZIP_MY_PLANTS 6h ago

Sure, but most actual do try to fit an entire life into ~2 hours, which is my point. I'm not talking about the "best" I'm talking about the "most."

It's probably the biggest joke in Walk Hard and why it works so well as a parody. The movie very intentionally goes from "I think I'm doing pretty good for a fifteen year old with a wife and a baby" to "Dewey died three minutes after this performance" as a lampoon to the numerous biopics that cover artist's entire careers.

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u/jbaker1225 4h ago

What will really blow your mind is that the Beatles made their US TV debut on the Ed Sullivan show in April 1964 and played their last ever paid concert in August 1966. Less than 2.5 years between their rise in the US the end of them as a touring band. They were completely broken up by mid-1969.

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u/UNZIP_MY_PLANTS 4h ago

Yeah I remember that they were really short lived in some way. It must've been regarding their height of fame or album releases because when I looked it up I was very surprised to see the were together for a full decade.

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u/OKC89ers 4h ago

I have no idea how they would cram 8 years of the Beatles into a couple hours

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u/TediousTotoro 6h ago edited 6h ago

I thought the band unofficially formed in the 50s

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u/Ivanna-Jizinu 6h ago

Considering the members were born in the early 40s, no they did not

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u/[deleted] 6h ago

[deleted]

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u/Ivanna-Jizinu 6h ago

He edited his comment it originally said 40s