“The Fifth Beatle”, a biopic about the band's manager Brian Epstein, will start production next year and will become the first-ever feature film about The Beatles to secure music rights to their songs granting unprecedented access to the Lennon/McCartney music catalog.
Based on Tony Award winning producer Vivek J. Tiwary’s recently-released graphic novel of the same name, the project will be directed by Peyton Reed (Bring It On, The Break-Up).
"From the moment I read Vivek's graphic novel, I knew I wanted to be the person to bring Brian's story to the big screen,” said Reed. “I'm a lifelong Beatles fan, obviously, but it's Brian's fascinating life that really blew me away and drew me to this project. He's the ultimate outsider who, against all odds, became the ultimate insider. He was responsible for shepherding the most popular artistic expression of "love" in the history of modern culture, and yet he wasn't allowed to express his own love during that time."
“The Fifth Beatle” recounts the untold true story of Epstein, the visionary who discovered The Beatles and helped guide the band to international stardom as their manager, securing their first record deal at a time when no one else was interested, and successfully bringing them to the world stage with a scale and scope no music impresario had ever attempted.
Epstein's boast - "The Beatles will be bigger than Elvis!" - seemed absurd in 1961, but proved humbly prophetic by 1967. When he died at the age of 32, he was an extremely successful artist manager and entertainment impresario, but a painfully lonely young man.
“The Fifth Beatle” debuted at No. 5 on the New York Times Bestsellers list this week and can be ordered via the Amazon links below.
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