Jordan Karlesson
Every moviegoer knows about Peter Jackson’s blockbuster, award-winning adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy and Hobbit prequels. Hard-core fans of J.R.R. Tolkien are likely also familiar with the incomplete LotR animated movie that came out in 1978. But there’s another cinematic interpretation of the fantasy epic that never saw the light of day — and it involved the Beatles.
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So … whatever happened to the latter project?
The Fab Four Meet Lord of the Rings
John, Paul, Ringo, and George making a film version of LotR wasn’t as farfetched as it may sound. After all, the Beatles released the musical comedy A Hard Day’s Night in 1964, the marijuana-fueled movie Help! in 1965, and the mostly improvised Magical Mystery Tour in 1967.
That’s not to mention another musical comedy, the beloved animated flick Yellow Submarine, which came out in 1968.
But the unreleased movie, the Beatles’ take on Lord of the Rings, might have been their most outlandish stab at cinema.
Coincidentally, it was LotR director Peter Jackson who tried to figure out the story behind the scrapped pic while he was making his Get Back documentary series that came out in 2021.
The documentary series covers the Beatles’ Let It Be album released in 1970. It includes previously unreleased footage and audio material originally captured for Michale Lindsay-Hogg’s 1970 documentary of the successful album.
Jackson didn’t include footage of the Beatles’ LotR project but talked about it with the BBC while doing promotion for Get Back.
“I’ve been scraping together little pieces of information,” Jackson said. “I’ve been interrogating Paul [McCartney] about it. Ringo [Starr] doesn’t remember much.”
Piecing Together the Beatles’ Failed Lord of the Rings Project
Jackson said Denis O’Dell developed the idea of the Beatles making a LotR movie, Screen Rant noted.
O’Dell was a British film producer who worked on Magical Mystery Tour and A Hard Day’s Night. He died in December 2021 at age 98.
“When [The Beatles] went to Rishikesh and stayed in India, it was about three months with the Maharishi at the beginning of 1968, he sent the books to The Beatles,” Jackson said. “I expect because there are three, he sent one book to each of the Beatles. I don’t think Ringo got one, but John, Paul, and George each got one Lord of the Rings book to read in India. And they got excited about it.”
However, Tolkien apparently stepped in to block the Beatles from proceeding with the project in 1970. The English author died in September 1973 at age 81.
“Ultimately, [the Beatles] couldn’t get the rights from Tolkien, because he didn’t like the idea of a pop group doing his story,” Jackson continued. “So it got nixed by him. They tried to do it. There’s no doubt about it. For a moment in time they were seriously contemplating doing that, at the beginning of 1968.”
Did Stanley Kubrick Team with the Beatles?
As opposed to A Hard Day’s Night and Help!, in which the Fab Four played themselves, the Beatles would have played fictional characters in their LotR movie, as Variety notes.
Jackson confirmed that McCartney would have starred as Frodo, Starr as Sam, John Lennon as Gollum, and George Harrison as Gandalf. They allegedly wanted filmmaker extraordinaire Stanley Kubrick to direct their interpretation of LotR.
“Paul couldn’t remember exactly when I spoke to him, but I believe that is the case,” he told the BBC. “Paul said, ‘Well I’m glad we didn’t do it, because you got to do yours and I liked your film.’ But I said to him, ‘Well, it’s a shame you didn’t do it, because it would have been a musical.’
“What would the Beatles have done with a Lord of the Rings soundtrack album? That would have been 14 or 15 Beatles songs that would have been pretty incredible to listen to,” Jackson added. “So I’ve got two minds about it. I would have loved to hear that album, but I’m also glad I got the chance to do the films. But those songs would have been fascinating.”
But alas, for the Let It Be auteurs, their take on LotR was not to be.
