Why Robert Zemeckis’ CGI Beatles Movie Was Canceled

As a Brit, I may be a little biased when I say this: The opening ceremony for the London 2012 Summer Olympics was the best ever. Directed by Danny Boyle, the usual hour of dancers and acrobats twirling around was spectacular and silly, complete with skits celebrating the Industrial Revolution, the NHS, and the nation’s rich cultural scene. Movie buffs also got two special treats: Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean daydreaming about beating the boys from “Chariots of Fire” in their famous beach race, and Queen Elizabeth II making her screen debut opposite Daniel Craig’s James Bond before her stunt double sky-dived into the stadium. It was surely the best trailer “Skyfall,” which hit theaters a few months later, could have hoped for.

The music of the Fab Four featured heavily during the ceremony, complete with Sir Paul McCartney wrapping things up by leading a sing-a-long to “Hey Jude.” As such, it only seemed natural that a remake of “Yellow Submarine” was also slated to coincide with the London Olympics. The bad news was that Robert Zemeckis would be mo-capping the Beatles this time around. We all love the director for classic movies like “Back to the Future,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” and “Forrest Gump,” but his track record with motion-capture and CG animation has been divisive (to say the least).

For some, Zemeckis’ “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf,” and “A Christmas Carol” are almost unwatchable due to the creepy motion-capture style that plunges viewers deep into the Uncanny Valley. Thankfully, the director’s “Yellow Submarine” project was canceled, and snippets of footage suggest it would have been a journey to the bottom of the Uncanny Mariana Trench. But why, exactly, was it given the chop?

The Beatles had an amazing run between their formation in 1960 and their acrimonious breakup a decade later. Apart from becoming arguably Britain’s greatest cultural export and changing the face of popular music, they also found time to appear in some films. Cashing in on the Beatlemania phenomenon, the Fab Four signed up for a three-picture deal with United Artists that started with RIchard Lester’s “A Hard Day’s Night” in 1964. Marking a transition in British cinema from the kitchen-sink realism of the 1950s to the more celebratory tone of the swinging epoch that came after, it was one of the best movies of the 1960s. Fresh, funny, and pacy, the boys were clearly having a blast playing themselves and taking an irreverent swipe at fame and fan culture.

“A Hard Day’s Night” was followed a year later by “Help!”, the Beatles’ second film for United Artists. This time, Lester switched to color for a madcap adventure that was also a success at the box office but generally less well-regarded. Then came the Fab Four’s next effort, the made-for-TV road movie “Magical Mystery Tour,” which was an aimless and self-indulgent affair that drew the ire of critics and fans alike. The poor reception also made the Beatles wary about appearing in another feature film, so “Yellow Submarine” became a work-around to help fulfill their obligation to United Artists. As an animated musical, they wouldn’t need to star in it themselves, although they chipped in with a live-action cameo before jetting off to India to hang out with the Maharishi.

Their last feature film, released in the year that the Beatles disbanded, was a bittersweet sign off. “Let it Be,” a documentary chronicling the rehearsals for their final album of the same name, concluded with footage of an unannounced rooftop concert. It was the Beatles’ last public performance together.

Contrasting with the sharp black-and-white of “A Hard Day’s Night,” “Yellow Submarine” is rooted firmly in mid-’60s psychedelia. The Beatles dabbled with LSD around this time, influencing the sound and lyrics of “Revolver,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” while the film’s animation style leaned heavily into the trippier elements of all three.

The film begins in Pepperland, a peaceful subaquatic utopia that is under threat from music-hating creatures called the Blue Meanies. Old Fred, a whiskery sea dog, escapes in the titular submarine and heads off to grimy Liverpool to enlist the help of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Their meandering voyage back to Pepperland is waylaid by a series of hallucinatory adventures before they thwart the buzz-killing Chief Blue Meanie and his henchmen with a rendition of “All You Need is Love.”

“Yellow Submarine” often feels like an excuse to string a bunch of Beatles songs together, but there’s hardly anything wrong with that, and the outrageous visuals are truly outstanding. Around 200 artists were hired during almost a year of production, and the result is a wildly imaginative fantasia that surely had an influence on Terry Gilliam. Standing in for the real Fab Four, John Clive, Geoffrey Hughes, Peter Batten, and Paul Angelis do a decent job of mimicking the droll delivery of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, respectively. Since we now know the band would be no more just a few years later, their very late cameo is poignant as they briefly appear to kick off a knees-up with “All Together Now.”

Dick Cook, then the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, announced a remake of “Yellow Submarine” in 2009 at the studio’s D23 expo. Trumpeting the project as “truly an inspired collaboration,” Cook revealed that a licensing deal with Apple Corp Ltd had been struck to ensure that all 16 songs from the original film would also be included in the remake, and that Zemeckis would be behind the periscope with his “pioneering” team at ImageMovers Digital. Zemeckis stated that making the film with the latest 3D motion-capture technology was a “dream come true.”

While I’m sure that some people were excited by the prospect, that last part no doubt sent shudders down the spine of many Beatles fans, not to mention lovers of traditional animation and anyone who was given Yuletide nightmares by Zemeckis’ “The Polar Express” and “A Christmas Carol.” Indeed, a few days after the announcement, Gizmodo published an opinion piece calling the remake a mixture of “strange hubris” and “a failure of imagination.”

Potential casting choices emerged a few months later. It wasn’t a bad line-up: British actors Peter Serafinowicz (“Shaun of the Dead”), Dean Lennox Kelly (BBC’s “Robin Hood”), and Adam Campbell (“Shameless”) would play Paul, John, and Ringo respectively, while Cary Elwes would lend his vocal talents as George. The most eye-catching rumor was that David Tennant, then coming to the end of his initial stint at the TARDIS controls on “Doctor Who,” would star as the Chief Blue Meanie. Come October 2010, however, there were signs that stormy waters lay ahead for the film. Although Zemeckis insisted it was still a go pictureTennant revealed on a chat show that he thought the project had stalled.

Rumors of budgetary problems emerged before Disney axed both the “Yellow Submarine” remake and ImageMovers Digital in early 2011. Following on from the disappointing performance of “A Christmas Carol” at the box office, another dismal showing from “Mars Needs Moms” provided the killer blow. Zemeckis sought new backers but, with no takers forthcoming, he was forced to abandon his dream project.

Since then, some early snippets of Zemeckis’ remake have surfaced. Concept art shows that the vision of Liverpool, with streams of soot billowing into the sky, were rather dystopian, while the creature design and the new-look Blue Meanies would have been nothing short of nightmarish. Meanwhile, the reimagined Yellow Submarine was gearing up to become a steampunk craft somewhere between the Nautilus in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and the illogically spacious interior of the TARDIS. Worst of all, motion-capture of the Fab Four’s cameo in the original resurrected John Lennon and George Harrison to ghoulish effect.

It may be unfair to judge a canceled movie based on pre-production design, but the previous work of Zemeckis and ImageMovers perhaps gives us a pretty good idea how horrible the finished product would have turned out. If, like me, you hate the creepy mo-cap of “Polar Express” and the rest, you’ll no doubt agree we dodged a bullet on this one. Luckily, we still got to see “Yellow Submarine” in time for the London Summer Olympics when the original received a limited release. It would sail back into theaters again for its 50th anniversary in 2018.