Abandoned 3D Submarine
Yellow Submarine was a planned computer-animated remake of The Beatles’ 1968 film of the same name. It would have been produced by ImageMovers Digital and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Director Robert Zemeckis was to incorporate the sixteen Beatles songs and recordings from the original motion picture licensed from Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
It was to be 3D adaptation of the classic Beatles animated feature in which the British pop band travel to a magical place called Pepperland in a yellow submarine to drive away the evil music-hating Blue Meanies.
Variety reported in August 2009 that Walt Disney Pictures and director Robert Zemeckis were negotiating to produce the 3D computer animated remake of Yellow Submarine.
Disney and Apple Corps Ltd. officially announced the remake at the inaugural D23 Expo on September 11, 2009. The movie was to be animated using performance-capture. Disney hoped to release the film in time for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Peter Serafinowicz was cast to voice Paul McCartney, Dean Lennox Kelly as John Lennon, Cary Elwes as George Harrison, and Adam Campbell as Ringo Starr. California-based tribute band The Fab Four was cast to do the motion-capture peformance for the animated Beatles. David Tennant and Paul O’Grady were also auditioning for roles in the movie.
In 2010, Disney shut down ImageMovers Digital, citing the unsatisfactory box office performance of A Christmas Carol and the disastrous opening weekend results of Simon Wells’ Mars Needs Moms. After its cancellation, Zemeckis was free to pitch the movie to other studios, but eventually abandoned the project.
Credits to The Lost Media Monsters for finding this piece of media, check out their Twitter account.
Source: disney.fandom.com
The animated Beatles look passable, but that Blue Meanie looks awful, nightmarish. It has none of the original’s charm and magic. Glad it wasn’t made.
I agree I’m glad it was made either.
It all looks unauthentic, cheap and unappealing…not in the spirit of the Beatles. Almost as discomforting like a bad Beatles tribute band. Wonder what JOL would have thought 🙂 ?
Who cares? Lennon thought Allen Klein was good for the band.
I’ve never seen nor heard any thing about this before. All look very weird. The original is better looking.
We wrote briefly about it back in 2009: http://webgrafikk.com/blog/uncategorized/zemeckis-wants-paul-and-ringo/
Thanks but never heard of you until late 2020
a series of storyboards for the film were also found!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTVjANx-2EI
Phew. Lucky miss. Although I’m a big Zemeckis fan as well as a Sub fan, this was one cancellation that saved both from a tragic mis-step. Good to see the footage though as it kills off my suspicion it might have been great ;P
poof!– all links gone already.