Peter Jackson's The Beatles documentary finally has a release date

Peter Jackson’s forthcoming The Beatles documentary finally has a release date. The Beatles: Get Back will arrive in cinemas in The U.S. and Canada on September 4th.

The documentary will feature never-before-seen or heard footage from studio sessions that birthed Let It Be. As well as the band’s iconic final performance on a rooftop in London. As Peter Jackson describes it, the film is the “the ultimate ‘fly on the wall’ experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about — it’s like a time machine transports us back to 1969, and we get to sit in the studio watching these four friends make great music together.”

The film has created a more positive counter-narrative to the low-spirited Let It Be film — which aired the dirty laundry and internal disputes that led to The Beatles demise. Jackson’s positive depiction of the period has earned that stamp of approval from Ringo Starr, who shares “I’m really looking forward to this film. Peter is great and it was so cool looking at all this footage. There was hours and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the version that came out. There was a lot of joy and I think Peter will show that. I think this version will be a lot more peace and loving, like we really were.”

The Beatles: Get Back was born from over 55 hours of unreleased footage, filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1969. In addition to the footage, Jackson has plucked from 140 hours of mostly-unheard audio recordings from the album sessions. The footage in question was vividly restored by Park Road Post Production of Wellington, New Zealand.

The revitalised footage was praised by George Harrison’s son in an interview with Rolling Stone, “It’s so ridiculously amazing looking — I could see John Lennon’s fillings,” Harrison said. “I emailed Peter yesterday and said, ‘This is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.’”