Ron Howard To Direct Beatles Concert Doc

Ron Howard will direct and produce an authorized documentary on the group’s touring years between 1960 and 1966.

Ron Howard

Variety reports Apple Corps Ltd., White Horse Pictures and Howard’s Imagine Entertainment will produce the documentary with the cooperation of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison.

“I am excited and honored to be working with Apple and the White Horse team on this astounding story of these four young men who stormed the world in 1964,” Howard said. “Their impact on popular culture and the human experience cannot be exaggerated.”

The untitled film finished is scheduled to be in theaters by the end of next year.

The Beatles began playing as a group at the Cavern Club in Liverpool in 1960, followed by clubs in Hamburg and England and a European tour in  late 1963. The iconic Ed Sullivan appearance on Feb. 9, 1964,  caused their popularity to explode and their first world tour began that summer.

By the final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in August, 1966, they had performed 166 concerts in 15 countries and 90 cities around the world. Howard said the film wil explore why The Beatles became so popular by examining the era’s social and political context.

“After I saw The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, all I wanted after that was a Beatles wig,” Howard recalled. “My parents said no but then they gave me one for my 10th birthday.”

The film will make extensive use of concert footage — some of it shot on movie cameras by fans — and mixes of sound board recordings. Howard believes that the finished film will contain between 12 and 20 songs.