Peter Jackson’s 6-hour Beatles documentary confirmed for Disney+ this November

Peter Jackson's next six-hour epic is finally coming out this year—and in a first for the acclaimed director, the film will launch directly to a streaming service. It will also be broken up into episodes.

The Beatles: Get Back, an expansive documentary originally announced for a theatrical run this August, has had its release strategy tweaked. On Thursday, Jackson and Disney confirmed that the entire project will launch exclusively on Disney+ during this year's American Thanksgiving holiday. Each third of the documentary will launch on the streaming service on November 25, 26, and 27. As of press time, Disney hasn't said how the film will reach audiences outside of Disney+'s supported territories. Neither Jackson nor Disney clarified how the original theatrical run might have worked or whether the global pandemic forced anyone's hand.

Today's news confirms that Jackson had an abundance of footage to work with. Roughly three years ago, the remaining Beatles handed him access to a musical holy grail: over 60 hours of previously unseen video recordings, mostly capturing the Beatles working on the album Let It Be and rehearsing for, and then performing, the band's legendary 1969 rooftop concert in London.

Jackson stitched the footage together with access to what Disney calls "over 150 hours of unheard, restored audio"—meaning yes, somehow Apple Corps. still has some tapes in hiding after this many Beatles special edition albums, anthologies, video games, and Cirque du Soleil collaborations. For further context on the Let It Be recording sessions, the film will be paired with a physical book full of photos and original interviews, now delayed to an October launch.

Jackson's comments in today's news, as provided by Disney to members of the press, imply that he indeed sought to release a long documentary: "I'm very grateful to the Beatles, Apple Corps., and Disney for allowing me to present this story in exactly the way it should be told." He also commented on the original documentary footage, filmed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, as something that is "not nostalgia—it's raw, honest, and human."

The Beatles: Get Back will launch on a Thursday, thus breaking Disney+'s latest initiative of launching new series episodes on Wednesdays instead of Fridays. If anyone can break a newly sacrosanct Disney+ rule, it has to be the Beatles.

Listing image by The Walt Disney Company / Apple Corps / Wingnut Films