Disney and Bob Zemeckis to Develop Yellow Submarine Remake

By Kevin Coll • August 20, 2009 • 1 Comment

This is a pretty great story as Bob Zemeckis is one of my favorite directors. Turns out he and Disney are very apt on making a remake of “Yellow Submarine,” the 1968 psychedelic animated film based on the music of The Beatles. The studio has been quietly brokering a complicated rights deal that would give Zemeckis access to 16 original Beatles songs for a movie he will direct in the performance-capture 3-D digital production format he employed for Polar Express and A Christmas Carol.

“The hope is to have Yellow Submarine ready to premiere around the 2012 Summer Olympics, which begins July 27 in London. Disney would not comment on the negotiations or the project. Zemeckis’s ImageMovers would produce.”

The interesting key is getting rights to use the original music because ideally Disney not only sees a film but a Broadway show much like they did with the Lion King. The deal has been months in the making with armies of lawyers. Yellow Submarine is just the latest in a flurry of pacts for The Beatles. September will be a big month for the band that broke up in 1970, with the release of a flurry of remastered records and the vidgame “The Beatles: Rock Band.”

I think there is still a demand for the classic music as people like me grew up listening to it through my parents there is a distinct historic respect for the group that most people have. Look at American Idol a few years ago as they played songs from the Lennon-McCartney songbook, the very popular Cirque Du Solei “Beatles Love” in Vegas, Rockband – as we mentioned, Julie Taymor’s Across the Universe and much more culture relevance today for the band. I hope everything works out in the deal and that we see this movie because it will be truly amazing – maybe we’ll get Ringo and Paul McCartney at Comic-Con next year or the following.

The storyline of the original took place in Pepperland, an undersea paradise protected by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. When the band is captured by the music-hating Blue Meanies, a soldier is sent to Liverpool to fetch the Fab Four, who hop in the submarine and save the day.

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