Academy Award-winning director Ron Howard will helm a new authorized documentary about The Beatles based on the early part of the Fab Four”s career.
The feature film, which has the full cooperation of surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as John Lennon”s widow, Yoko Ono, and George Harrison”s widow, Olivia, will focus on The Beatles” early days at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, England through their last public concert at San Francisco”s Candlestick Park in 1966.
The Cavern Club was the small Liverpool venue where the Beatles played more than 200 times between 1961-1963 and were discovered by their manager Brian Epstein (the Quarrymen, the earlier version of The Beatles, started by Lennon and eventually joined by McCartney and Harrison, played their first gig at the vaunted club in 1957). The film will include clips of home movies and photos captured by fans who were at the gigs.
“I am excited and honored to be working with Apple and the White Horse team on this astounding story of these four young men who stormed the world in 1964,” Howard said in a statement. “Their impact on popular culture and the human experience cannot be exaggerated.” Apple is the entity that controls the Beatles' business ventures.
White Horse Pictures, the team behind the Emmy-winning Martin Scorsese”s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” HBO documentary, will produce the untitled film, along with Imagine Entertainment”s Brian Grazer, and Howard.
No word on when the documentary will be released theatrically.