Sony Pictures and filmmaker Sam Mendes have been mulling some innovative ideas for the release of their four Beatles biopics — including lumping together the films’ box office returns.
The first glimpse of their strategy came over the weekend when Mendes’ producing partner Pippa Harris pulled back the curtain a bit. “We want people to be able to experience them in the cinema at the same time, during the same period,” she said at the BFI London Film Festival’s Industry Forum keynote session. “Now that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re thinking that people will go and see all four films on the same day. But within the same month, you might see one a week, or you might see one film one weekend and another the next.”
Harris’ comments have been interpreted a couple of different ways — such as the movies potentially being released on different weeks during the same month. But sources tell The Hollywood Reporter the director and the studio have long mulled dropping all four movies the same day.
In addition, Mendes and the studio have been pondering a highly unique reporting structure for the films’ box office receipts. Instead of releasing each film’s tally individually, the studio has been considering lumping the returns of all four movies together.
This would, in effect, prevent the expected horse-race drama of “the John Lennon movie is $12 million more popular than the George Harrison movie,” or whatnot. The ticket-sales-per-movie data would still likely get out into the media from independent sources, however.
“Who’s your favorite Beatle?” has been a topic of conversation and debate that has followed the band since it was first formed, and there’s an understandable reluctance to have the Beatles films put an exact popularity ranking and dollar figure on that question — particularly since the two surviving Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, are actively involved in the films. The legendary musicians have provided feedback on the scripts and met with the respective actors playing their roles (Paul Mescal, Harris Dickinson, Joseph Quinn and Barry Keoghan play Paul, John, George and Ringo, respectively.)
Another idea being considered is offering a four-pack of tickets to encourage fans to buy tickets to all the movies at once instead of cherry-picking one or two to watch in theaters and saving the rest for streaming. It’s not clear how this one would actually work in practice, however, as it would presumably involve getting the major cinema chains to implement an unusual ticket-buying structure.
Assuming all four movies do indeed drop the same week, sources also say the plan is to market the films as not having a particular order — that there will be no “right” order in which to watch the films.
Each of these fab four ideas points to Mendes and the studio looking for creative solutions to address the broader challenge of getting audiences to watch not just one movie about the Beatles, but a quartet, each told from the perspective of a different member of the band, without giving any one movie more weight or using a structure that pushes one film to potentially cannibalize the audience for another.
Sources emphasize that these plans remain fluid amid ongoing discussions and could change.
The Beatles movies open in April 2028, which Sony doubtless hopes will be a relatively competition-light spot on the calendar to ensure there’s enough space in each market for John, Paul, George and Ringo to get enough screens each.
Sony Pictures had no comment on the plans.