Thursday, October 13, 2011 at 10:12AM The Beatles Biopic 'The Longest Cocktail Party' Finds a Writer & Director
It's almost impossible to believe there haven't been far more movies made about The Beatles, especially considering they're easily one of the two most popular, iconic bands of all time (The Rolling Stones being the other). That's all about to change with news regarding the new biopic The Longest Cocktail Party, which is based on a book by Richard DiLello that highlights the major events during the band's latter years.
Producer Andrew Eaton told The Playlist that Michael Winterbottom (The Killer Inside Me, 9 Songs) will direct the film from the screenplay written by Jesse Armstrong (In the Loop). However, Eaton also shot down rumors that apparently came from Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher that Johnny Depp would be playing The Beatles famed publicist, Derek Taylor.
"Johnny in a way would be great," Eaton said. "But the trouble is, Derek Taylor, who's the main character, who's the press officer, he's from Liverpool, and he's probably 32 or 33 in the story, whereas Johnny Depp is 48 or something, and American, so it's more than just an age gap. There are other parts he could do, but whether he could be Derek...I don't know."
DiLello's book reportedly covers the band's time during their last album, "Let it Be", when the Apple record label was founded. With a director and writer in place, acquiring the rights to The Beatles songs from Apple is the next major hurdle for the project. Eaton described those negotiations with Apple as a "mindfield". Too bad.
A Beatles biopic is a fantastic film idea, and I really like the addition of Winterbottom as the director. It could be a long wait for this movie to be developed, but it's clearly the type of project that'd be well worth the wait.
Reader Comments (2)
There've been gobs of movies made from or about The Beatles, admittedly though there's not been very many movies based DIRECTLY on the band. "Backbeat" and "Nowhere Boy" are the two from the last two decades that come to mind right away. Still though, Winterbottom taking on the end of the era - whereas those two movies cover the beginning - should make an interesting complimentary set with them. Also, given how he handled the late 80's headed for the 90's music industry in "24 Hour Party People" , it'll be interesting to see how he covers the music, and the people who made it, of a different era.
It looks like a horror party rather a cocktail party/