Peter Jackson won acclaim, and five Emmy nominations, for his exhaustive eight-hour documentary The Beatles: Get Back. But the Lord of the Rings director still has a story to tell about the Fab Four.
The New Zealander has said he is in talks with the surviving members of The Beatles, Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Ringo Starr, about another film. “It’s not really a documentary ... and that’s all I can say,” he told Deadline, an American entertainment website.
“I’m talking to The Beatles about another project, something very, very different from Get Back,” he said. “We’re seeing what the possibilities are, but it’s another project with them.”
Beatles fans around the world were delighted with Get Back, the result of painstakingly combing through 130 hours of audio and 57 hours of unused footage shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg for his 1970 documentary Let It Be.
Recalling the laborious editing process, Jackson said: “It wasn’t as intense as making three Lord of the Rings back to back, but it was four years with a pandemic in the middle of it all.”
Jackson, 60, said he was heartened by the reception for Get Back, including Emmy nominations for best director and best documentary series. He singled out the film’s editor and sound engineers for particular praise.
“Get Back is all about the sound, and restoring the sound and developing the AI things to separate the musical tracks,” he said.
“We did a lot of groundbreaking work, so it’s really great that the guys who did that work are part of the Emmy nominations. I’m really pleased with that.”
Jackson came up with the idea to separate Lennon’s vocal track on I’ve Got A Feeling so McCartney, 80, could sing along with video of his old bandmate — a performance that thrilled millions watching his Glastonbury set last month. But the director was almost too nervous to suggest it to McCartney.
“I had that idea when I started working on Get Back, four years ago,” Jackson said. “I didn’t mention it to Paul. I thought, ‘Suggesting to Paul that he sing onstage with John, he’s going to think I’m a fanboy geek idiot.’
“Finally, I thought, ‘I’m going to regret this for the rest of my life if I don’t even suggest it.’ I sent him a text. Within 10 minutes he replied to me: ‘Yeah, this is a fantastic idea, let’s go do it.’ Paul was thrilled by it.”
Jackson said that his decision to extend the film to a 468-minute epic was based on what he wanted to see on screen as a Beatles fan. “I delivered a six-and-a-half hour cut earlier, and people thought, ‘It’s a bit long, can you cut it down to six hours?’ Nobody at Disney was particularly enthusiastic about an extended cut.”
He added: “I went rogue, and without telling anybody — Apple Corps, Disney or The Beatles — I decided to put scenes in that we’d pulled out. Nobody knew it was going to be seven and a half hours until we delivered it to them.
“I did it because, as a Beatles fan, there was a lot of material where I’d have felt it was wrong from the point of view of musical history for it to go back into the vault.”
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Topic: Peter Jackson working on new Beatles film (Read 1490 times)