Peter Jackson to make new Beatles documentary out of unseen Let It Be session footage

Let It Be, released in 1970, was The Beatles' final album, which landed several months after the iconic group split up.

The Lord Of The Rings director, Peter Jackson, will direct the new Beatles documentary, which will see the New Zealand filmmaker use 55 hours of unseen footage from the recording sessions of their Let It Be record.

Expanding on his new project, Jackson says, "The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us, ensures this movie will be 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 footage was initially recorded by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and was expected to be aired as a TV special. Instead it was developed into an 80-minute documentary which included their iconic 1969 London rooftop show, which took place exactly 50 years ago today (30 January). The documentary was released just days after the album in 1970, but was soon retracted from circulation in the 1980s.

Jackson explains, “After reviewing all the footage and audio that Michael Lindsay-Hogg shot 18 months before they broke up, it’s simply an amazing historical treasure-trove. Sure, there’s moments of drama - but none of the discord this project has long been associated with. Watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch, is not only fascinating - it’s funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate."

NME reported in September 2018 that Paul McCartney hinted at the new documentary, "I think there may be a new version of it. That’s kind of the latest gossip. There’s a lot of footage, and the original movie came out, and it was really sort of about the break-up of The Beatles. And so for me, it was a little sad, the movie."

The new documentary is currently in production, and has the go-ahead from Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison.