As Paul McCartney continues to rock around the globe — and Ringo Starr continues to do whatever it is that Ringo Starr does these days — director Ron Howard has aimed his lens at the iconic Fab Four and their beginnings in a documentary he has titled The Beatles: Eight Days A Week.
The first trailer for the hyper-authorized upcoming film — Eight Days A Week was created in partnership with both surviving Beatles, as well as the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison — focuses on the band’s early days, when massive waves of success shattered their whole reality.
“We were kids,” says a dapper current-day McCartney in the minute-long sneak peak, “We were all pretty scared.”
The previously untold story of the Beatles’ beginnings will span from their early days at Liverpool’s Cavern Club until their landmark 1966 concert in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, documenting the rock and roll band’s meteoric rise to fame in the interim. Featuring rare and exclusive footage, as well as interviews with McCartney and Starr, the film should peel some of the shiny veneer off of the creation of the band’s international fame, revealing a more personal perspective of the four British musicians in their musical infancy.
The film will be released via Hulu after its theatrical premiere, and was the first nonfiction movie picked by the video streaming service as part of its new Hulu Documentary Films arm. A Beatles documentary from Ron Howard is a good get for any streaming company, especially in a market that is increasingly using exclusives and original programming to drive subscription numbers.
Eight Days A Week will premiere on September 15 in London, and Hulu has partnered with indie film distributor Abramorama to get the movie into a small number of film houses that will show the large-format version. But despite the limited theatrical release, if the film is up to typical Ron Howard quality, it could still be considered for many of the film world’s top honors.
