The Beatles' new biopics have hit a major stumbling block as filmmakers have reportedly been banned from shooting on the iconic Abbey Road. Earlier this year Sony confirmed the cast for the four Beatles projects following a sea of speculation, with all four films set to be released in April 2028.

Gladiator II hunk Paul Mescal will play Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson will play John Lennon, Barry Keoghan will star as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn will play George Harrison in the films about The Fab Four. However, with production underway, it's now been claimed bosses have been blocked from filming at the iconic Abbey Road crossing.

Sam Mendes, who is directing the films, had wanted to recreate the Beatles' 1969 album cover on the crossing. Westminster Council have reportedly refused permission as filming at the legendary location would force result in the road being temporarily closed, causing traffic chaos.

Gladiator II hunk Paul Mescal will play Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson will play John Lennon, Barry Keoghan will star as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn will play George Harrison in the films.  However, with production underway, it's now been revealed bosses have been blocked from filming at the iconic Abbey Road crossing.

An insider told The Sun: 'It's believed they turned down the request on the basis that they'd have to shut down the road for filming to take place safely.  'The trouble is that the huge number of tourists who visit the area often cause disruption by having their picture taken recreating the scene.

'That would be magnified by having dozens of cast and crew present to do the same thing for the movie. Now the producers are facing the prospect of omitting the scene as they really don't want to rely on CGI because that would not look authentic.

'The hope is that they kind a road that looks similar enough that they can still make it happen in some form.'  Daily Mail has contacted Westminster Council for comment. Earlier this month it was revealed the actresses who had been cast to play the Fab Four's wives in the biopics.

White Lotus star Aimee Lou Wood, 31, will play George Harrison’s wife Pattie Boyd, while Irish Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan, 31, has been cast as Linda McCartney, the muse to many of Paul McCartney’s songs.

Anna Sawai, 33, who has made a name for herself in the US drama series Shogun, will appear as John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono, and British actress Mia McKenna-Bruce, 28, will play Maureen Cox, the wife of Ringo Starr.  Sam Mendes, who is directing the films, had wanted to recreate the Beatles' 1969 album cover on the crossing (pictured in March)

Entitled The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event, the project was announced last year.

The movies will each take the perspective of one member of The Beatles as they evolve from unknowns in Liverpool in the early 1960s to becoming the biggest band in the world and then breaking up in 1970.

It’s the first time that surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr, and the families of the late Lennon and Harrison, have given the rights to feature films about them.

Announcing the female foursome, Mendes said: ‘Maureen, Linda, Yoko and Pattie are four fascinating and unique figures in their own right, and I’m thrilled that we’ve managed to persuade four of the most talented women working in film today to join this amazing adventure.’

Source: Alex Doyle/dailymail.co.uk

In late December 1999, former Beatle and accomplished guitarist George Harrison endured what one can only describe as a nightmare. That night, one Michael Abram scaled the side of Harrison’s home, broke in, and confronted Harrison with a large knife.

The fact that the assailant even made it inside is nothing short of astonishing. After Harrison’s former bandmate, John Lennon, was violently murdered by a former fan in 1980, Harrison took extensive measures to make sure his estate in Liverpool, England, was as safe as possible. Harrison himself had dealt with stalking incidents in the 1990s, leading him to install searchlights, barbed wire, guard dogs, and private security. Somehow, Abram evaded it all, leading to a stand-off between himself and Harrison in the home’s main hall.

Harrison allegedly chanted the “Hare Krishna” mantra to distract the man and attempted to disarm him. Harrison was badly injured in the fight, suffering multiple stab wounds that included a punctured lung. The fight ended when his wife, Olivia, threw a lamp at the assailant and knocked him out. Police arrived shortly after, and Harrison was rushed to the hospital.

Fortunately, Harrison survived. A doctor even told him that he was “lucky to be alive” after recieving a shocking 40 stab wounds. He lost one of his lungs to the attack, but he would live another day.  Michael Abram, a Liverpool local, suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Many of this individual’s delusions were religious in nature and made worse by the consumption of drugs. At one point, Abram believed he was an incarnation of the Archangel Michael from the Bible, sent by God to murder Harrison.

After the attack, Abram was also hospitalized. When his trial began, he requested to send a letter of apology to the Harrison family. He claimed he did not know that he had schizophrenia. He was inevitably charged with attempted murder.

On this day in 2000, Abram was found not guilty by insanity and was ordered “indefinite confinement in a mental hospital.” Though, in 2002, just a few months after George Harrison passed away from cancer, Abram was discharged from the hospital and placed in a hostel. Harrison’s bereaved family found the release “upsetting and insulting.” The whole event was traumatizing for both Harrison and his family. And some believe that the attack “triggered” the resurgence of cancer that would claim his life in 2001. Even Harrison’s contemporary, The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards, agreed with that sentiment.

“I think he probably would have beaten the cancer if it wasn’t for the blade,” said Richards in a Rolling Stone interview. “I mean, we know that he didn’t die from [the attack], but I’m sure that it sort of broke down his resistance to what he had to deal with.”

Source: Em Casalena/americansongwriter.com

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Yoko Ono has long been blamed for “breaking up the Beatles.” The now-92-year-old artist has endured decades of sexist, racist abuse from still-bitter Beatles fans. Now, a recovered phone call featured in the new documentary One to One: John & Yoko—which will premiere on HBO and HBO Max at 8 p.m. tonight—reveals Ono felt abandoned by Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr at the height of this horrific harassment.

Directed by Kevin Macdonald, this documentary is an intimate look at the life of John Lennon and Yoko Ono during an 18-month period where they lived together in New York City in the early 1970s. In addition to restored footage of Lennon and Ono’s “One to One” concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1972—Lennon’s only full-length concert after the Beatles and before his murder in 1980—the documentary also features never-before-heard phone calls from Ono and Lennon, who recorded all their calls at the time.

In a phone call between Ono and musician David Peel—a New York friend of the couple, who occasionally performed with Lennon at political rallies—Ono details the horrific verbal and physical abuse she faced from Beatles fans.

“I’m supposedly the person who broke up The Beatles, you know?,” Ono says in the phone call, recorded in the early 1970s. “When I was pregnant, many people wrote to me saying, ‘I wish you and your baby would die.'”

Ono continued, “I got a rubber doll has lots of needles in it, in the eyes, and the nose, and everything. When I was walking on the street with John, people came to me, saying things like I’m an ugly Jap. They pulled my hair, and hit my head. I was just about to faint.”

Ono goes on to say that during this period, she had three miscarriages. Then she expresses frustration that amidst this treatment from Beatles fans, none of the Beatles (save for Lennon) stood up for her.

Source: Anna Menta/decider.com

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One of the key characteristics that defined The Beatles early in their career was that they were a single unit. It wasn’t John, Paul, George, and Ringo; it was just The Beatles. This was, of course, due to their tight-knit friendship, but as the years rolled by, external forces seemed to interfere with their friendship and professional partnership, ultimately ending the band. However, despite these forces, The Beatles stayed true to a pact they had made before their breakup.

For a moment, put aside the last three or so years of The Beatles’ career. Put aside Yoko Ono, creative control, the death of Brian Epstein, financial disputes, and just recall how close friends they were. As a matter of fact, Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones called them the “four-headed” monster because of their tight-knit bond. As a result of that tight-knit bond, The Beatles made an admirable promise to each other that both solidified the end of the iconic rock band, but also kept their historic legacy intact. The promise was that if one band member quit, then The Beatles would not go on without them.

Source: Peter Burditt/americansongwriter.com

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It has been nearly 60 years since The Beatles’ The White Album was released, and it is widely considered to be one of their finest works to date. Containing huge hits such as the George Harrison-penned “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” the Paul McCartney solo “Blackbird”, and the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry’s controversial parody “Back In The U.S.S.R.”, the album is packed with quality songwriting and compositions. One of their most underrated songs from the album is “Don’t Pass Me By,” a song that not even the dynamic songwriting duo McCartney-Lennon can take credit for.

Around 1963-1964, Ringo Starr wrote “Don’t Pass Me By”, which is his first and one of his few solo compositions he had written for the band. However, it was released as part of The White Album, meaning that the band took between four to five years to record and release the song. The reasons why this is the case vary, but it soon came into fruition after the Fab Four’s iconic trip to India.
Ringo-Starr-Hard-Rock-Live Image via Robert Bell/INSTARimages

Even drummers with little songwriting experience, like Starr, have their stroke of songwriting genius. For Starr, it happened only a few years into The Beatles’ prime, as Starr stated that he wrote the song while sitting “round at home.” “I only play three chords on the guitar and three on the piano,” he remembered. “I was fiddling with the piano – I just bang away – and then if a melody comes and some words, I just have to keep going. That’s how it happened.

Source: Teguan Harris/collider.com

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The only thing that could outshine the news of The Beatles breaking up was the swirling, speculative rumors of whether they would ever get back together—something that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison had to answer to often in the years that followed the Fab Four’s split. The public’s curiosity was understandable. They were the biggest rock band in the world in the latter half of the 1960s (bigger than Jesus, so they say). Their dissolution was the end of a movement, not just an era.

As one might expect from four distinct personalities, each of The Beatles had a different explanation for why the band was no more. During a 1981 Good Morning America interview, Harrison put it in familial terms. “The simplest way of saying it is like when you grow up in a family and everybody grows up, and they all leave home, and the brothers and sisters all go and get married and lead their own lives, you know. It’s like really asking them all to go back and live with their mom and dad again.”

He continued, “For us, as individuals, we all had our own lives to lead. We had a lot of experiences, other than being four people stuck in the same hotel room together, that we had to live out.”

Source: Melanie Davis/americansongwriter.com

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