The Beatles announce Let It Be film reissue and new collaboration with Peter Jackson

The Beatles have announced a new film collaboration with director Peter Jackson, focusing on the January 1969 sessions for Let It Be.



The as-yet untitled film will be assembled from 55 hours of previously-unreleased film footage of The Beatles working on the Let It Be album in January 1969, at Twickenham Film Studios and their newly-built Apple Studios in Savile Row, London.

The announcement comes on the 50th anniversary of The Beatles' concert on the Apple rooftop, their final live appearance and the climax of the Let It Be film.

A restored version of the original Let It Be movie, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, will be released after the new film.

Here's the official press release:
London – January 30, 2019 - Apple Corps Ltd. and WingNut Films Ltd. are proud to announce an exciting new collaboration between The Beatles and the acclaimed Academy Award winning director Sir Peter Jackson. The new film will be based around 55 hours of never-released footage of The Beatles in the studio, shot between January 2nd and January 31st, 1969. These studio sessions produced The Beatles’ Grammy Award winning album Let It Be, with its Academy Award winning title song. The album was eventually released 18 months later in May 1970, several months after the band had broken up.

The filming was originally intended for a planned TV special, but organically turned into something completely different, climaxing with The Beatles’ legendary performance on the roof of Apple's Savile Row London office — which took place exactly 50 years ago today.

Peter Jackson said, "The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us, ensures this movie will be the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about - it’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.”

Although The Beatles were filmed extensively during the 1960s - in concerts, interviews and movies - this is the only footage of any note that documents them at work in the studio.

The Let It Be album and movie, having been released in the months following The Beatles’ breakup, have often been viewed in the context of the struggle the band was going through at that time.

“I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth,” continues Jackson, “After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it’s simply an amazing historical treasure-trove. Sure, there’s moments of drama - but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating - it’s funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate”.

"I’m thrilled and honoured to have been entrusted with this remarkable footage - making the movie will be a sheer joy.”

Jackson will be working with his They Shall Not Grow Old partners, Producer Clare Olssen and Editor Jabez Olssen. The footage will be restored by Park Road Post of Wellington, New Zealand, to a pristine standard, using techniques developed for the WW1 documentary film which has been nominated for a BAFTA for best documentary.

The untitled film is currently in production and the release date will be announced in due course. This film is being made with the full co-operation of Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon, and Olivia Harrison.

The Executive Producers are Ken Kamins for WingNut Films and Jeff Jones and Jonathan Clyde for Apple Corps.

Following the release of this new film, a restored version of the original Let It Be movie directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg will also be made available.

Source: https://www.beatlesbible.com/2019/01/30/beatles-peter-jackson-let-it-be-film-announced/

Peter Jackson to make new Beatles documentary using unseen footage from ‘Let It Be’ sessions

Peter Jackson’s next project has been announced: a revised version of The Beatles documentary Let It Be.

The Lord of the Rings filmmaker will use 55 hours of in-studio footage initially filmed by director Michael Lindsay-Hogg for the original 1970 film.

Paul McCartney has previously hinted that a new version of Let It Be was being worked on, having been disappointed with the original’s downbeat take on the recording sessions – which took place just a year before the band broke up.
Jackson said in a statement of making the new film: “The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us ensure this movie will be the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about.

“It’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.”

For those fans intrigued by Lindsay-Hogg’s original film, Apple has confirmed that his version will be released “following the release of this new film”.

Jackson agreed with McCartney that the original does not represent what was actually happening in the studio at the time. “I was relieved to discover the reality is very different to the myth,” Jackson said.
“After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it’s simply an amazing historical treasure trove.
“Sure, there are moments of drama, but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John, Paul, George and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating – it’s funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate.

“I’m thrilled and honoured to have been entrusted with this remarkable footage. Making the movie will be a sheer joy.”
The news comes on the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ concert atop the Apple Corps offices in London. While there’s no release date for Jackson’s film, sources tell Variety that the documentary could come out next year to mark the 50th anniversary of Let It Be.

Jackson recently released the documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, which featured restored footage of soldiers from the First World War. Jackson also recently co-produced the science-fiction film Mortal Engines, directed by Christian Rivers.



Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/peter-jackson-beatles-documentary-let-it-be-paul-mccartney-john-lennon-split-a8753981.html

Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back set for cinema release in September 2020

The long-awaited Beatles documentary by The Lord Of The Rings director Peter Jackson will receive a cinema release in the USA and Canada on 4 September 2020, with global release details to follow.


The Beatles: Get Back documents the recording of the group’s Let It Be album. It contains previously-unseen footage culled from 55 hours of material filmed by director Michael Lindsay Hogg in January 1969, plus 140 hours of audio from the sessions.

The new film’s music will be mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios, London.
Jackson’s film, which was announced in January 2019, will also include The Beatles’ entire concert on Apple’s rooftop on 30 January 1969. An edited version of the group’s final live appearance was included in the Let It Be film, released in May 1970.

A restored version of the Let It Be film will follow the release of The Beatles: Get Back. The original film was shot while The Beatles rehearsed and recorded at Twickenham Film Studios and the band’s own Apple Studios.

The Beatles at Twickenham Film Studios, January 1969 (photo: Linda McCartney)

The worldwide distribution rights for the The Beatles: Get Back have been acquired by The Walt Disney Studios. A new hardcover book, titled Get Back, will also be published by Callaway Arts & Entertainment on 6 October 2020 in the USA, and 15 October in the UK.
Here’s the full press release:

BURBANK, Calif. (March 11, 2020)—The Walt Disney Studios has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to acclaimed filmmaker Peter Jackson’s previously announced Beatles documentary. The film will showcase the warmth, camaraderie and humor of the making of the legendary band’s studio album, “Let It Be,” and their final live concert as a group, the iconic rooftop performance on London’s Savile Row. “The Beatles: Get Back” will be released by The Walt Disney Studios in the United States and Canada on September 4, 2020, with additional details and dates for the film’s global release to follow. The announcement was made earlier today by Robert A. Iger, Executive Chairman, The Walt Disney Company, at Disney’s annual meeting of shareholders.

“No band has had the kind of impact on the world that The Beatles have had, and ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ is a front-row seat to the inner workings of these genius creators at a seminal moment in music history, with spectacularly restored footage that looks like it was shot yesterday,” says Iger of the announcement. “I’m a huge fan myself, so I could not be happier that Disney is able to share Peter Jackson’s stunning documentary with global audiences in September.”
“The Beatles: Get Back,” presented by The Walt Disney Studios in association with Apple Corps Ltd. and WingNut Films Productions Ltd., is an exciting new collaboration between The Beatles, the most influential band of all time, and three-time Oscar®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy). Compiled from over 55 hours of unseen footage, filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969, and 140 hours of mostly unheard audio recordings from the “Let It Be” album sessions, “The Beatles: Get Back” is directed by Jackson and produced by Jackson, Clare Olssen (“They Shall Not Grow Old”) and Jonathan Clyde, with Ken Kamins and Apple Corps’ Jeff Jones serving as executive producers.

The footage has been brilliantly restored by Park Road Post Production of Wellington, New Zealand, and is being edited by Jabez Olssen, who collaborated with Jackson on 2018’s “They Shall Not Grow Old,” the groundbreaking film which featured restored and colorized World War I archival footage. The music in the film will be mixed by Giles Martin and Sam Okell at Abbey Road Studios in London. With this pristine restoration behind it, “The Beatles: Get Back” will create a vivid, joyful and immersive experience for audiences.

Peter Jackson says, “Working on this project has been a joyous discovery. I’ve been privileged to be a fly on the wall while the greatest band of all time works, plays and creates masterpieces. I’m thrilled that Disney have stepped up as our distributor. There’s no one better to have our movie seen by the greatest number of people.”
Paul McCartney says, “I am really happy that Peter has delved into our archives to make a film that shows the truth about The Beatles recording together. The friendship and love between us comes over and reminds me of what a crazily beautiful time we had.”
Ringo Starr says, “I’m really looking forward to this film. Peter is great and it was so cool looking at all this footage. There was hours and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the version that came out. There was a lot of joy and I think Peter will show that. I think this version will be a lot more peace and loving, like we really were.”

“The Beatles: Get Back” is also being made with the enthusiastic support of Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison.
Although the original “Let It Be” film, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and the accompanying album were filmed and recorded in January 1969, they were not released until May 1970, three weeks after The Beatles had officially broken up. The response to the film at the time by audiences and critics alike was strongly associated with that announcement. During the 15-month gap between the filming of “Let It Be” and its launch, The Beatles recorded and released their final studio album, “Abbey Road,” which came out in September 1969.
Shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm, the 80-minute “Let It Be” movie was built around the three weeks of filming, including an edited version of the rooftop concert. The GRAMMY®-winning “Let It Be” album topped the charts in the U.S. and the U.K.

The new documentary brings to light much more of the band’s intimate recording sessions for “Let It Be” and their entire 42-minute performance on the rooftop of Apple’s Savile Row London office. While there is no shortage of material of The Beatles’ extensive touring earlier in their careers, “The Beatles: Get Back” features the only notable footage of the band at work in the studio, capturing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as they create their now-classic songs from scratch, laughing, bantering and playing to the camera.

Shot on January 30, 1969, The Beatles’ surprise rooftop concert marked the band’s first live performance in over two years and their final live set together. The footage captures interactions between the band members, reactions from fans and employees from nearby businesses, and comical attempts to stop the concert by two young London policemen responding to noise complaints.

A fully restored version of the original “Let It Be” film will be made available at a later date.

Source: https://www.beatlesbible.com/2020/03/11/peter-jackson-beatles-get-back-cinema-release-september-2020/

Top 10 Beatles Bootleg Albums

The three Beatles ‘Anthology’ volumes released in the ’90s were supposed to stop bootleggers. OK, maybe not stop them, because the band has been one of the world’s most heavily bootlegged artists ever since unreleased session tapes started making the rounds in the late-’60s. But the trio of double-disc albums officially released by Capitol Records was certainly designed to keep all but rabid fans from acquiring illegal Beatles records. The ‘Anthology’ albums did a fine job of sampling the countless hours of demos, mixes, alternate takes and live shows that are available, but they merely skimmed the surface of all the fabness out there. Our list of the Top 10 Beatles Bootleg Albums surveys the best of them.

Beatles Complete Rooftop Concert-10
‘The Complete Rooftop Concert’ (1998)

On Jan. 30, 1969, the Beatles made their last public appearance together on the London rooftop of Apple Records, where they performed a brief impromptu concert for some lucky lunchtime passersby. This album (which includes other tracks from the ‘Get Back’ sessions) features the entire performance, which was made up of songs that ended up, in slightly altered takes and mixes, on ‘Let It Be.’


Beatles Sessions-9
‘Sessions’ (1994)

In 1985, the Beatles’ British record company collected a bunch of leftover tracks from the studio vaults and planned to release ‘Sessions.’ For one reason or another, the record was scrapped. This 1994 bootleg recovers the career-spanning LP. Most of the songs eventually ended up on the ‘Anthology’ albums, but it’s great to hear gems like ‘Leave My Kitten Alone,’ ‘Not Guilty’ and an alternate take of ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ the way fans would have heard them in 1985.


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‘The Complete BBC Sessions’ (1993)

Capitol released a two-disc, 69-track CD in 1994 culled from the radio sessions the Beatles recorded from 1963 through 1965. But this massive 10-volume set gathers every note they played on the BBC, where they performed lots of covers (Chuck Berry, Little Richard, etc.) plus plenty of their own songs with playful rawness.


Beatles Artifacts-7
‘Artifacts’ (1993)

This five-disc series starts in Liverpool in the late ’50s with a pre-Beatles cover of Buddy Holly’s ‘That’ll Be the Day’ and ends with the band’s final overdub session for the ‘Let It Be’ album. In between are rarities, demos and alternate takes of many favorites. Like the official ‘Anthology’ albums, ‘Artifacts’ chronicles the Beatles’ story from start to finish.


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‘Get Back: The Glyn Johns Final Compilation’ (1999)

The ‘Get Back’ sessions were supposed to bring the feuding Beatles back together for a fun, loose record after the splintered ‘White Album.’ But things didn’t turn out that way, and the sessions turned chaotic almost immediately (various Beatles quit the group at various times during the recording). Engineer Glyn Johns mixed an early version of the album that’s preferable to the cobbled-together official release — retitled ‘Let It Be’  and drowned in strings and other mushy decorations by producer Phil Spector.


Beatles Unsurpassed Masters-5
‘Unsurpassed Masters’ (1989)

This seven-volume series, like several other series in our list of the Top 10 Beatles Bootleg Albums, compiles a wide range of leftover takes, demos and unreleased songs from the band’s vast studio archive. There’s plenty of reworked classics (like songs with flubbed vocals and without overdubs) for Beatlemaniacs here.


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‘The Alternate Abbey Road’ (1997)

The Beatles’ last album, ‘Let It Be,’ didn’t include the final music they recorded; ‘Abbey Road’ was the last album they worked on together. And unlike the hate-fueled ‘Get Back’ / ‘Let It Be’ sessions (see No. 6 on our list of the Top 10 Beatles Bootleg Albums), ‘Abbey Road’ was loose and relatively stress-free. This great album reconstructs ‘Abbey Road’ from alternate takes, offering an eye-opening glimpse of the band’s meticulous recording process.


Beatles Turn Me on Dead Man-3
‘Turn Me on Dead Man: The John Barrett Tapes’ (1999)

To keep busy while undergoing cancer treatment in the early ’80s, John Barrett, an engineer at Abbey Road studios, began combing the vaults and cataloging the hours of tapes buried there. He uncovered a gold mine of unreleased Beatles material. This two-disc set collects his greatest finds, including rough sketches, unheard mixes and some songs that never made it to the official records.


Beatles Ultra Rare Trax-2
‘Ultra Rare Trax’ (1988)

Before Apple got around to releasing the ‘Anthology’ CDs in the ’90s, the excellent ‘Ultra Rare Trax’ series was the best roundup of unreleased Beatles material (an official skimpy ‘Rarities’ LP was released in 1980 but soon went out of print). Spanning eight volumes, ‘Ultra Rare Trax’ features everything from ‘Rubber Soul’ outtakes to sloppy jams pulled from the ‘Get Back’ sessions. Even with the official ‘Anthology’ series available, these sets are indispensable.


Beatles Acoustic Masterpieces-1
‘Acoustic Masterpieces: The Esher Demos’ (1998)

It’s no secret that the four Beatles basically served as each other’s backing bands on ‘The White Album.’ This collection offers solid proof that everyone was working on their own material, which they later brought to the studio for group overdubs. Unlike most of the other records on our list of the Top 10 Beatles Bootleg Albums, ‘Acoustic Masterpieces’ includes revealing solo acoustic demos by John, Paul and George. It’s pretty much ‘The White Album’ before some color was added.

Source: http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-bootleg-albums/

The three Beatles ‘Anthology’ volumes released in the ’90s were supposed to stop bootleggers. OK, maybe not stop them, because the band has been one of the world’s most heavily bootlegged artists ever since unreleased session tapes started making the rounds in the late-’60s. But the trio of double-disc albums officially released by Capitol Records was certainly designed to keep all but rabid fans from acquiring illegal Beatles records. The ‘Anthology’ albums did a fine job of sampling the countless hours of demos, mixes, alternate takes and live shows that are available, but they merely skimmed the surface of all the fabness out there. Our list of the Top 10 Beatles Bootleg Albums surveys the best of them.

10

‘The Complete Rooftop Concert’ (1998)

 

On Jan. 30, 1969, the Beatles made their last public appearance together on the London rooftop of Apple Records, where they performed a brief impromptu concert for some lucky lunchtime passersby. This album (which includes other tracks from the ‘Get Back’ sessions) features the entire performance, which was made up of songs that ended up, in slightly altered takes and mixes, on ‘Let It Be.’