A rare Beatles documentary will stream on Disney+ this spring, after being unavailable for decades.
50 years after its initial release, the film will come to Disney+ on May 8. The Michael Lindsay-Hogg-directed film was filmed while they recorded their legendary Let It Be album. It is set to feature rare and exclusive video footage of the band recording the album in the studio and the Apple Corps' London rooftop in January 1969, where they wrote, recorded, and first performed the album in 1969.
"... How often do you get to see artists of this stature working together to make what they hear in their heads into songs?" Lindsay-Hogg said in a statement, People reports. "And then you get to the roof, and you see [The Beatles'] excitement, camaraderie and sheer joy in playing together again as a group and know, as we do now, that it was the final time, and we view it with the full understanding of who they were and still are and a little poignancy."
It was released in theaters in 1970, before being wiped from circulation for years. The film carries a dark connotation for fans of the band as it was released a month before the band broke up in April 1970.
Shedding the "darker lens" it previously held, the movie has been restored and "brought to a new light" after Disney's recent The Beatles: Get Back docu-series, which came out in 2021.
Lindsay-Hogg approved of the restoration, which was taken over by Peter Jackson's Post Road Post Production, improving audio and visual components of the movie. Jackson reveals that he was "absolutely thrilled" to have been granted access to the footage after years of it being hidden.
"I was so lucky to have access to Michael's outtakes for Get Back, and I've always thought that Let It Be is needed to complete the Get Back story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and The Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and Let It Be is that documentary - the movie they released in 1970," he continued. "I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades."
Let It Be features former bandmates John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. Keyboardist Billy Preston also makes an appearance in the movie. Each Beatles member is listed as an executive producer, as is Neil Aspinall.
The film was released on video platforms in 1980, which allowed extremely limited viewing. It has not been released on DVD, Blu-Ray, or streaming services prior to the upcoming Disney+ acquisition.
The news of the film comes after film director Sam Mendes signed on to create four separate biopics about each member of the band. The long-awaited project from Sony will cover the perspective of each band member, starting with their inception to the 1970 breakup.
