about the beatles biopics
the beatles biopics, directed by american beauty director sam mendes and to be released on april 2028, had their castings for the four members officially announced and everyone is losing their minds. rightfully so i think. i'm personally not a big fan of music biopics at all, however i'm an enormous fan of the beatles. not exactly the target audience i presume. however, i cant help but be excited about the films as i have a parasite in my brain that makes me obsessed with a 60 year old band! so, i thought i would just ramble about my concerns about the castings and the formatting of these biopics in general, real quick.
now, joseph quinn as george harrison is probably the casting announcement that caused the most horror out of all four. i have to say that i'm REALLY not pleased with it either. to be fair, i haven't seen the guy in anything else but stranger things but something about him is just not right. why is eddie munson playing george harrison it just doesn't FEEL right. that's about as kindly as i can comment on that matter. next, paul mescal as paul mccartney. disclaimer first: paul is my favorite beatle so you can take my word for it when i say that that guy doesn't have it in him to properly express the inner whimsy and the repressed freak levels that paul mccartney exudes with his presence. no sir. let me also add that i cosign every tweet that states paul mesacal's need to take estrogen before even attempting to do a paul. but regardless, paul is a hard character to get and to portray. most biographies, let alone biopics don't do him justice (and this argument can be made for all four of the beatles honestly.) suffice to say i'm extremely concerned but ready to eat my words. i don't really have much to say about harris dickinson as john and barry keoghan as ringo. i think they are the better ones out of the four and i can actually see harris dickinson doing a good john, same with keoghan and ringo. overall, beyond the fact that they picked some "white boy of the month on tiktok" ass actors, i can't really comment on the castings before i see them perform. so i guess we'll just have to wait and see.
beyond the casting, which actually doesn't reveal too much about a biopic as the actors might end up surprising us all in a good way, similar to how it happened with chalamet's bobby d, i'm far more concerned about the format of these biopics. "first film binging experience" or whatever the crap they called it, sounds like a concept from hell. sounds like a marvel cinematic universe idea. sounds like i'm gonna pay §100 to see four films in a row, absolutely get bored out of my mind and not even be satisfied with them in the end. let me say that i'm fully on board with the idea of giving all four of the members their own deserved, dedicated full length films but i'm genuinely asking, who wants to see four sam mendes films in a row even if they are about the beatles? NOT ME. if all of them had different directors maybe i could get behind the idea. that would be kind of interesting. it would provide some variety and would be a good way to portray the individuality of each beatle. but i can't help but have extreme concerns about sam mendes directing four equally interesting and captivating films about four deeply complex people in three years. that's all i can say on that.
i'll have to say, the only thing that keeps me hopeful about these films is the fact that they are estate approved. now, i know that estate approval can have its downs as well as its ups, but at least they will have the rights to the music. so that's at least one plus in the bag for us. also, it means they can directly consult on matters of historical accuracy (at least on an individual level) and respectful portrayal. i'm choosing to view that as a positive so far, however, we'll have to, again, wait and see about that. the very least i can hope is that they aren't as sanitized as a complete unknown was i guess. also, we don't know who is in charge of the scripts as far as i'm aware. the scripts can make or break the films so with a good team of writers, they may actually end up being good for biopic standards! as i said, i'm BEGGING to be proven wrong here.
i think that's all i got on the recent beatles biopic updates. hope we have only positive developments from now on, and sam mendes does justice to the beatles story, even though i have really low expectations on that front. maybe i'll do a more elaborate post later on about how i would want a beatles biopic to look like in my perfect world. if anyone's read this (though i doubt it) hope you enjoyed!