The Beatles’ seminal animated film and subsequent album, “Yellow Submarine,” is coming to the big screen once again thanks to Disney and Robert Zemeckis, according to Variety.
George Dunning’s orginal “Yellow Submarine,” released in 1968, took place in an undersea wonderland called Pepperland guarded by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The anti-music villains, the Blue Meanies, capture the band and a soldier is sent to Liverpool to fetch the Fab Four who board the submarine and save the day.
Zemeckis and Disney are planning to shoot a new 3-D version of the beloved film using use the same performance-capture method the director employed for his upcoming “A Christmas Carol,” starring Jim Carrey. Disney also hopes the film will lead to new merchandising opportunities and the possibility of both a Broadway musical spinoff and a Cirque du Soleil stage show.
The studio is earnestly wading through the complicated mess required to land the rights to the 16 classic Beatles songs featured in the film including, “Baby You’re a Rich Man,” “All You Need Is Love,” “When I’m 64,” “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”
Studio is eyeing a release near the opening of the 2012 Olympics.
