The Beatles: Eight Days a Week

Production

The film was produced with the cooperation of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Beatle widows Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison. In addition to directing the documentary, Ron Howard also served as a producer alongside Brian Grazer, Nigel Sinclair, and Scott Pascucci. Written by Mark Monroe, the film was edited by Paul Crowder. Marc Ambrose served as Supervising Producer

Prior to the film's release, it was announced that it includes 30 minutes of film footage shot for the band's 1965 concert at Shea Stadium. That concert was filmed by Ed Sullivan Productions and broadcast on TV as The Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1966. Consisting of 11 songs, the set was originally shot on 35-mm film, but was digitally restored for the documentary to 4K resolution, in addition to remastered sound by Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin.

Release

The film project was announced by Hulu on 4 May 2016 as its first documentary acquisition, as part of a planned Hulu Documentary Films collection. The film premiered theatrically on 15 September, before debuting on the streaming service on 17 September.

Box office

As of 27 November 2016, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years has grossed $2.9 million in the U.S. and Canada and $9.3 million in other territories, including $1.4 million in the UK, for a worldwide total of $12.2 million.

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95%, based on 75 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "We love them, yeah, yeah, yeah—and with archival footage like that, you know The Beatles: Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years can't be bad." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score 72 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

On December 6, 2016 the film was nominated for best music film at the 59th annual Grammy Awards. On February 12, 2017, the film won the Grammy award for best music film.

Album

A remixed and remastered version of the 1977 album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl was released on 9 September 2016, to coincide with the release of the film.

Lawsuit

On 12 September 2016, Apple Corps. and Subafilms Ltd. were sued by representatives of Sid Bernstein, the concert promoter of the 1965 Shea Stadium concert, over the ownership of the master recordings from the event. While the copyright of the songs was not contested, the footage itself was claimed to be owned by Sid Bernstein Presents, LLC, the company representing Bernstein's interests, who himself died in 2013. The suit requested an injunction against the release of the footage in the film, asserting Bernstein's ownership "[by] reason of being the producer of and having made creative contributions to the 1965 Shea Stadium performance, as well as being the employer for hire of the Beatles and the opening acts, who performed at his insistence and expense". The company had submitted an application to the Copyright Office to register ownership of the footage in July, but was rejected on the grounds of not having access to the tapes themselves.

Paul Licalsi, a lawyer for Apple Corps., described the lawsuit as "frivolous", citing an agreement that Bernstein had with the band's management over the film rights, as well as the fact that Bernstein himself had never made any claim during his lifetime.