Beatles film recreates iconic Abbey Road album cover

The production team behind the forthcoming four-film Beatles biopic, directed by Sam Mendes, has been spotted filming outside Abbey Road studios in London. Inevitably, this includes a recreation of the celebrated Abbey Road album cover, for which the band was photographed on the nearby pedestrian crossing – now a popular tourist landmark.

Footage posted on social media on Sunday shows the actors playing the Beatles lining up on the kerb and walking across the road. Harris Dickinson, as John Lennon, is leading the walk, with Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison following in sequence.

The fab four … Harris Dickinson (John Lennon), Paul Mescal (Paul McCartney), Barry Keoghan (Ringo Starr), and Joseph Quinn (George Harrison). Photograph: John Russo/Rex/Shutterstock

The Beatles recorded Abbey Road mostly in the summer of 1969, and the cover photo was taken on 8 August after an initial idea to travel to Nepal for a photograph was abandoned. (The album’s working title was Everest, after a then-popular cigarette brand smoked by engineer Geoff Emerick.) Freelance photographer Iain Macmillan was commissioned to take the image, and took six stills from a stepladder positioned in the middle of the road – of which one was chosen.

Mendes announced the project in February 2024 – four films that each focus on an individual Beatle – with backing from Hollywood studio Sony Pictures and the permission of both McCartney and Starr, as well as from the estates of Lennon and Harrison. In addition to the actors playing the central roles, a host of major names have joined the cast, including Saoirse Ronan as Linda McCartney, James Norton as Brian Epstein and Lucy Boynton as Jane Asher.

The films are due for release in April 2028.