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Tuesday, November 23, 2021

Disney+ To Bring Back Beatlemania


Over Thanksgiving weekend when the Peter Jackson-directed “Get Back” debuts exclusively on Disney+. It will be shown in three installments between Thursday and Saturday that, together, total more than six hours. The original “Let It Be” film clocked in at a fleeting 80 minutes and included just 21 minutes of The Beatles’ final public performance, an impromptu winter gig on a London rooftop. “Get Back” boasts the entire 42-minute performance by the band and guest keyboardist Billy Preston, who all but joined the band as “Let It Be” was being filmed.


“Get Back” was originally set to open in theaters last year as a two-and-a-half-hour feature film but was pushed back by the COVID-19 pandemic. With more time unexpectedly on his hands, Jackson transformed his feature film into the expanded, six-hour epic that will be seen on Disney+.

“The pandemic has been devastating, but it was absolutely a silver lining for ‘Get Back’ (growing) into a three-part presentation,” said Clare Olssen, the film's producer. Jackson culled “Get Back” from nearly 60 hours of previously unseen footage that was shot in January 1969 for director Michael Lindsay-Hogg’s briefly released and widely criticized “Let It Be” documentary.

Providing added intrigue, shortly after the 1969 filming, many of the original reels of footage were stolen by a former employee of The Beatles’ Apple Studio, Nigel Oliver. He sold it to two Dutch music traders for about $60,000. Interpol recovered the purloined reels during a 2003 raid in Holland.

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