Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary finally gets a release date, thanks to Disney

To Peter Jackson's documentary on The Beatles, The Walt Disney Company said: let it be.

On Wednesday, Disney announced its acquisition of The Beatles: Get Back, the Lord of the Ring director's film that chronicles the legendary band's recording sessions for "Let It Be." That also means the doc has a release date in U.S. and Canadian theaters: this Sept. 4. A global release date will be announced at a later time. (Probably after the coronavirus situation is figured out.)

“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,” Disney's executive chairman Bob Iger said in a statement. “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.”

Jackson previously restored grainy, black-and-white archival World War I footage for his documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. He does something similar with Get Back, which uses more than 55 hours of unseen footage filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969, as well as 140 hours of mostly unheard audio recordings from the “Let It Be” album sessions. Jabez Olssen, who worked with Jackson on They Shall Not Grow Old, is editing the film. Giles Martin and Sam Okell are mixing the music at... where else? Abbey Road Studios in London.

“Working on this project has been a joyous discovery," Jackson said in his own statement. "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."

The film is a collaboration with the Beatles, and Paul McCartney says it "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.”

"I’m really looking forward to this film," said Ringo Starr. "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."

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