Ben Schwartz Joins Beatles Four-Film Cast
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- Ben Schwartz joins the cast of "The Beatles — A Four-Film Cinematic Event" as New York disc jockey Murray the K, a figure the band famously embraced during their first U.S. trip in the 1960s.
- Sam Mendes directs the ensemble — Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison — with Saoirse Ronan, Anna Sawai, Aimee Lou Wood, and Mia McKenna-Bruce playing Linda McCartney, Yoko Ono, Pattie Boyd, and Maureen Starkey.
- Apple Corps Ltd. and the Beatles have granted full life-story and music rights for the first time to a scripted film; each of the four films centers on a different member's point of view, intersecting to cover the band's journey from Liverpool to their 1970 breakup.
- Sony Pictures is financing and distributing all four films worldwide with full theatrical windows set for April 2028; shooting is currently underway in the U.K. under Mendes' Neal Street Productions.
- Harry Lloyd is cast as longtime producer George Martin and James Norton as manager Brian Epstein, with David Morrissey, Arthur Darvill, and Adam Pally rounding out the band's inner circle as Jim McCartney, press officer Derek Taylor, and controversial manager Allen Klein.
- Jez Butterworth, Peter Straughan, and Jack Thorne wrote the scripts; Mendes produces alongside Neal Street partner Pippa Harris, Julie Pastor, and Alexandra Derbyshire.
Why it matters: Schwartz's casting as Murray the K — the only non-Beatles figure historically inducted into their inner circle — fills a key supporting role in a project that marks the Beatles' first-ever full life-story and music rights grant to a scripted film, making the April 2028 Sony release the most comprehensively authorized band biopic to date.
