Peter Jackson's upcoming documentary about the Beatles' troubled Get Back sessions has been postponed until next year.

The Beatles: Get Back, which chronicles the group's rehearsals and performances from January 1969 as it began work on a new album, won't premiere until August 2021. The movie was originally scheduled to open in September but has now been delayed for almost a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to The Wrap, The Beatles: Get Back is just one of several projects that Disney has postponed until next year. The film expands on the Beatles' original 1970 movie Let It Be, which was envisioned as a TV special before the group changed direction during the making of the album.

The Beatles had intended to "get back" to their roots with a new stripped-down record following the studio experiments of albums like 1966's Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from the next year, as well as the tumultuous and often fractured sessions of the White Album in 1968.

But things didn't turn out that way, and band members were soon quarreling with one another. After a live performance on the roof of their Apple headquarters was shut down by the police, the Beatles abandoned the Get Back project, where it sat on the shelf for a year before producer Phil Spector assembled the tapes into the final album released by the group, Let It Be.

The accompanying film, which has been out of circulation for years, documented the splintering band and the making of the LP. Jackson's new version will include previously unseen footage, which reportedly gives a more clear indication of what was really going down during the sessions. According to various accounts, the new scenes show things weren't as tense as Let It Be and legend indicate.

“I am really happy that Peter has delved into our archives to make a film that shows the truth about the Beatles recording together," Paul McCartney said in an earlier statement. "The friendship and love between us comes over and reminds me of what a crazily beautiful time we had."

Ringo Starr added: "I’m really looking forward to this film. Peter is great, and it was so cool looking at all this footage. There was hours and hours of us just laughing and playing music, not at all like the version that came out. There was a lot of joy, and I think Peter will show that. I think this version will be a lot more peace and loving, like we really were."

Jackson's movie will also include the entirety of the famous rooftop concert. The Let It Be film included about half of the performance's 42 minutes. Shortly after that impromptu lunchtime show, the Beatles started work on another new album, Abbey Road, which became their last LP recorded together – and, perhaps not coincidentally, one that captured the back-to-basics spirit they were trying to achieve earlier in 1969.

 

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