NBC: NO MUSIC RIGHTS

 

News leaked June 13 that NBC has
a team developing an eight-part
mini-series on The Beatles. At the
outset,it has two big challenges:
no music rights and a competing
project at Sony Pictures Television.

Marty Bandier, chairman/CEO of
Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 
publisher of all but six of John
and Paul's Beatles compositions,
says he has long pursued a Beatles
TV show with the intention of it 
running on a pay cable outlet 
like HBO or Showtime.

"About six months ago,we were working
 with Sony Pictures TV on a show
 centered around the journey of
 the Beatles,and at one point we were talking about working with Baz Luhrmann,"
says Bandier,noting Sony/ATV hasn't been approached by NBC."We hadn't taken the next step,
which is to reach out to the Beatles. The proposal is still on the table."
NBC has not secured likeness rights from Paul,Ringo or the estates of John and George,a source
says. "NBC couldn't produce a show without the songs, and we can't produce a show without
approaching the Beatles for their likeness rights,"says Bandier.(Sony Pictures TV declined
comment. Executives familiar with the NBC project say the news report was premature). 
Filmmakers who have tackled elements of the Beatles story have done so by focusing on their

early years:Nowhere Boy, released in 2009, covered John's life from childhood to the formation

of the Beatles and included two obscure Fab Four songs. Backbeat, a 1994 film, focused on

their time in Hamburg, Germany, when they played all covers. Two of Us, a VH1 film based 

on a Lennon-McCartney meeting in 1976, had no Beatles music in it.

Using the band's songs: Steve Van Zandt cut a deal for David Chase's 2012 film Not Fade Away 

and got four non-Sony/ATV-published Beatles master recordings for about $250,000 apiece.