Director Sam Mendes’ ambition and greed are evident in his recently announced cast for The Beatles’ biopics, set to release in April 2028. Greed is prominent due to the plans of making four separate movies from the perspective of each band member. Ambition is painfully present because the new cast is less than suitable for these monumental roles.
The confirmed cast includes Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. While these actors have shown talent in their previous films, they are not the best choice to play the musicians. None of them have a credible musical background, nor are the age range of the Beatles when they started or even bear any physical resemblance to their roles, making them a choice based on popularity and relevance rather than accuracy.
The Beatles are one of the most influential bands in music history; those who play them have high stakes when retelling their story in a biopic. The casting is a huge disappointment for fans and music lovers worldwide, with users on X believing it was an April Fool’s prank and others putting the pictures side by side to “see how truly horrendous this casting is.”
Many Beatles tributes have done the job of retelling the band’s story without the need to cast popular actors, such as “Midas Man,” a movie about the band’s manager, where the directors did a global search for actors to accurately portray the Fab Four.
Mendes is not a bad director either, with films that have grossed millions of dollars in the box office and that have won several awards, such as “1917,” “American Beauty” and “Skyfall.” There is no need to cast big names to sell the films since he is an acclaimed director.
Mendes’ strategy to cast popular actors so the four movies make sales at the box office shows a lack of faith in new, unknown talent that could be an accurate depiction of the famous band. Moreover, he could give opportunities to rising actors to make it on the big screen. This official cast is a massive move that will intensify the magnifying glass of criticism once the films are released.
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