The Beatles, the most successful and influential rock band of the 1960’s and possibly all time, were announced to get a biopic in early 2024. However, now you are seeing more and more die hard fans of the popular English rock band begin to post hate about the biopics portraying each Beatle, mostly the casting. Recently, it has been announced that, unlike what many expected, each Beatle will receive a biopic detailing their time with the band and the relationship they had with their bandmates.
Backlash for the Beatles biopics has been primarily aimed at the casting with Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. Fans are slamming the movie for appearing to cast off of name value rather than actual talent or resemblance to the Beatles members; especially Joseph Quinn and Barry Keoghan.
Joseph Quinn is an interesting case because it is actually hard to deny that he was cast for any other reason than being insanely popular as an actor right now. He blew up as Eddie Munson in Stranger Things Season 4 and since then he’s been in several high budget blockbusters. He is becoming a Chris Pratt of sorts, where it seems like you see his name attached to every upcoming movie. You can’t deny that, when compared to the other cast members, he looks the least like the Beatle he is portraying even when in the clothes and makeup. However, Quinn has proven that he goes all out preparing for his roles, with him personally learning the guitar part for “Master of Puppets” from Metallica’s James Hetfield in preparation for his scene in Stranger Things Season 4. Even if he looks very little like George Harrison, he could, and will, still do a great job playing the “quiet Beatle”.
Barry Keoghan is the other one many seem to dog on in regards to the casting. Many still only know him for being Sabrina Carpenter’s ex-boyfriend, however; he has been in the acting business the longest out of the titular four cast members and has years of acting experience under his belt. Many people often make fun of how he looks and often call him ugly or undeserving, which is not too dissimilar to how Ringo was treated during his time with the band. Barry Keoghan has gone on record saying that he has been receiving so much hate over his looks that he has started refusing to even go outside. While Ringo never went through anything like that, or at least hasn’t really said anything similar to that publicly, this still shares some parallels to how Ringo was perceived at the time. Both Ringo and Barry are extremely talented in their fields, but are often overlooked because of their physical appearance and for their lack of overwhelming public appearances. Other than George Harrison, Ringo was the most overlooked Beatle and didn’t do many public appearances when he left the group. Barry does look the most similar to his Beatle out of the band, especially when paired with the iconic sideburn-moustache combo Ringo is associated with in the modern day.
Paul Mescal faced a little bit of criticism for his part as Paul McCartney, many saying that his features looked too masculine to play McCartney well. However, since the set photos have been released it does appear that the studio has used CGI to digitally alter his face a little to better resemble McCartney.
Harris Dickinson as John Lennon did raise eyebrows at first, for pretty much the same reasons as Mescal as McCartney. Dickinson’s face does not appear as skinny as John’s, however that is not a huge deal. John’s face and appearance changed a lot over his lifetime. During the early days of The Beatles his face was round and kind of fat, then around Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band his face and body slimmed down drastically. It’d be hard to resemble Lennon perfectly, but set photos do make it appear that Dickinson is pretty close.
Hating a biopic for hiring big names and not perfectly resembling the people the movies are depicting is a losing battle. So many biopics star massive names that barely look like the musicians or celebrities they are depicting. Jackie Robinson looked nothing like Chadwick Boseman, but Chadwick and “42” faced nowhere near as much backlash as these upcoming Beatles films. There was even the case for “I Walk The Line” which featured Jaoquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, but Phoenix looks almost nothing like Johnny Cash. The movie is just that, a movie. You will only find perfectly accurate appearances, performances, and events in a documentary, not a biopic. Of course, biopics should try to be as accurate as possible and not just make up a whole story for the sake of drama, these are real people after all. This movie hired experienced actors for these roles, and I think ultimately it was experience as a determining factor, the actors being big names was just a perk. These movies should be great even if not totally accurate, and people should maybe just take a second longer to think about the direction of these movies and what these movies truly are instead of taking them at face value and spreading a narrative with very little thought going into it. The movies are slated to release in 2028, so we’ll see exactly what direction these movies decided to go in by then.
