This past week at CinemaCon, filmmaker Sam Mendes revealed the details for his upcoming Beatles biopics. CinemaCon is the world’s largest motion picture industry gathering, from 31 March to the 3rd of April 2025. There will be four different movies, all interconnected with each other, focusing on each Beatles member. Barry Keoghan will portray Ringo Starr, Harris Dickinson will portray John Lennon, Paul Mescal will portray Paul McCartney, and Joseph Quinn will portray George Harrison. These films will be the first to cooperate with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as with the families of John Lennon and George Harrison. The movies are set to be released in April 2028.
Sam Mendes has been active in the industry since 1987. He is best known for his directional debut, American Beauty (1999), which received critical acclaim and achieved cult status, Revolutionary Road (2008), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and the war film 1917 (2019).
The Beatles themselves have starred in their own films, starting with A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and Help! (1965), both directed by filmmaker Richard Lester and released at the peak of Beatlemania.
The four actors chosen have each gotten their start in Hollywood. Harris Dickinson just last year starred in Babygirl alongside Nicole Kidman and The Iron Claw (2023), a biographical sports film about the wrestling family, the Von Erichs. Barry Keoghan starred in Saltburn (2023), alongside Jacob Elordi, and made an appearance in Sabrina Carpenter’s Please, Please, Please music video. Paul Mescal starred in Aftersun (2022) and, most recently, Gladiator II (2024), alongside Pedro Pascal and his Beatles co-star, Joseph Quinn. Quinn starred in Stranger Things 4 (2022) as Eddie Munson and, most recently, in A Quiet Place: Day One (2024), alongside Lupita Nyong’o.
The Beatles are considered to be one of the most influential bands of all time. They are honored with the title of trailblazers for the diversification of rock-pop music. The Beatles incorporated new technology, trying new guitar feedback, back-masking, and looping in their tracks. Their album covers reinvented the wheel by making album covers visual art, particularly their 1969 album, Abbey Road.
The Beatles are credited with influencing the British Invasion, which sparked a wave of British rock groups that extended into the 1990s. The Beatles are the namesake of Beatlemania, which is the associated with them since the early 1960s, with their early hits like “ Please Please Me” (1963) and “ I Want to Hold Your Hand (1963).”
Their television debut on the American show, The Ed Sullivan Show, in 1964, was viewed by 73 million people, catapulting them into a bigger success.
Many artists have included the Beatles as their inspiration. American singer and songwriter, Bob Dylan, who rose to fame in the 1960s, described the Beatles as “ Kind of grab[ing] everyone by the throat. Everyone thought that they were for the teenyboppers, that they were gonna pass right away. But it was obvious to me that they had staying power.”
Mick Jagger, of the Rolling Stones, thanks the Beatles for opening doors for British bands: “ Their success in America broke down a lot of doors that helped everyone else from England that followed, and I thank them very much for all those things.”
Steve Jobs, late American businessman, credits the Beatles: “ My model for business is the Beatles. They were four guys who kept each other’s negative tendencies in check. They balanced each other, and the total was greater than the sum parts. And that’s how I see business. Great things in business are never done by one person, they are done by a group of people.”
Some fans expressed anger at the casting choice, arguing that the actors don’t look remotely close to the actual members, particularly on the social media platform TikTok. Others expressed excitement that the greatest rock band of all time is finally getting its story told via cinema.
Director Sam Mendes states: “ I’m honoured to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies.” The four biopics are set to be theatrically released in April 2028 for a unique movie binge experience.
