A remastered edition of the Beatles’ Let It Be film will stream on Disney+ on May 8. It’s the first time the film has been available in over 50 years.
The new movie was restored by Peter Jackson’s team at Park Road Post Production and contains footage not featured in Jackson’s 2021 Get Back docuseries, which also streamed on Disney+.
The original Let It Be film, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was released on May 13, 1970, about a month after the Beatles had broken up and a week after the album of the same name arrived.
“Peter Jackson sees Let It Be and his Get Back as companion pieces,” Hogg said in a recent interview with Penny Black Music. “He thinks it’s very important that they are both out in the world. I hope Let It Be gets a re-release. It’s shorter and simpler, but because there isn’t as much in it, it’s easier to focus on certain things. Get Back is like a great novel, and Let It Be is like a great short story.”
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With Hogg’s support, Let It Be has now been remastered using the original 16mm negative, as well as the same audio de-mixing technology that was used in Get Back.
“I’m absolutely thrilled that Michael’s movie, Let It Be, has been restored and is finally being re-released after being unavailable for decades,” Jackson said in a press release. “I was so lucky to have access to Michael’s outtakes for Get Back, and I’ve always thought that Let It Be is needed to complete the Get Back story. Over three parts, we showed Michael and the Beatles filming a groundbreaking new documentary, and Let It Be is that documentary – the movie they released in 1970.”
“I now think of it all as one epic story, finally completed after five decades. The two projects support and enhance each other: Let It Be is the climax of Get Back, while Get Back provides a vital missing context for Let It Be. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was unfailingly helpful and gracious while I made Get Back, and it’s only right that his original movie has the last word … looking and sounding far better than it did in 1970.”
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