FILE PHOTO: Former Beatles Ringo Starr (L) and Paul McCartney attend the world premiere of ‘The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years’ in London, Britain September 15, 2016. REUTERS/Neil Hall/File Photo
LONDON (Reuters) – “Lord of the Rings” director Peter Jackson is making a movie about The Beatles with previously unseen studio footage, the band’s website said on Wednesday – 50 years to the day after the Fab Four performed live together for the final time.
The Oscar winner will work with some 55 hours of never-released video of John, Paul, George and Ringo as they worked on their “Let It Be” album in January 1969.
The footage, plus 140 hours of audio, “ensures this movie will be the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about,” Jackson said in a statement.
“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.”
Jackson last year released a World War One documentary using decades-old frontline footage, to rave reviews.
The “Let It Be” album and film were released in May 1970, after The Beatles broke up, and the unseen footage had originally be planned for a television program.
“Sure, there’s moments of drama – but none of the discord this project has long been associated with,” said Jackson, whose WingNut Films Ltd announced the project in a statement with the Beatles’ Apple Corps Ltd.
“Watching (them)… work together, creating now classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating – it’s funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate.”
The band performed live together for the last time on Apple’s offices London rooftop on Jan. 30, 1969. They officially split a year later.
Reporting By Marie-Louise Gumuchian; editing by John Stonestreet