Aus release date announced for Beatles doco-movie

Oscar-winning Ron Howard’s authorised Beatles documentary movie, The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years, will hit the screens in Australia and New Zealand on September 16.

Film distribution company STUDIOCANAL said it would have its star-studded world premiere in London’s Leicester Square a day earlier, followed later in the day with screenings in Germany and France. It has its Japanese debut on September 22.

It becomes available in the US on September 17 to stream exclusively to Hulu subscribers.

Scroll down to watch the trailer.

The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years features rare and exclusive footage (some from silent Super 8 home movies donated by fans around the world) from their early days from 1962 when they cut their chops relentlessly playing clubs like The Cavern in their hometown Liverpool and at residencies in Hamburg, Germany.

Four years later, they were reeling from the pressures of Beatlemania and a two year world tour which saw them perform 166 concerts in 15 countries and 90 cities. They went permanently off the road to concentrate on being in the studio to create masterpieces as Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. Their final official show was at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in August 1966.

It looks at their four individual personalities, how they worked as a four-headed creative juggernaut to create the magic they did, and an electrifying relationship with their fans that made the entire journey a phenomenon.

First discussing the project in 2014, Ron Howard told Rolling Stone: “We’ll not only be able to digitally repair [the Super 8 footage], but we’ve also been finding the original recordings. We can now sync it up and create a concert experience so immersive and so engaging, I believe you’re going to actually feel like you’re somewhere in the Sixties, seeing what it was like to be there, feeling it and hearing it. And as a film director, that’s a fantastic challenge.”

The film was produced with the full cooperation of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison. Co-producers in the project were White Horse Pictures’ Nigel Sinclair, Scott Pascucci and Brian Grazer of Imagine Entertainment.

Jeff Jones and Jonathan Clyde of The Beatles’ company Apple Corps Ltd served as Executive Producers, along with Imagine’s Michael Rosenberg and White Horse’s Guy East and Nicholas Ferrall.