Lord of the Ringo: Tolkien said no to a Beatles musical

WHEN Peter Jackson turned the lord Of the Rings books into a blockbuster film trilogy, he ended up with three Oscars.

But the director has told of his disappointment that the Fab Four didn’t get there first.

the Beatles wanted to swap abbey Road for the Shire in the Sixties, but JRR tolkien blocked the Fab Four from making a Middle Earth musical.

Sir Paul McCartney has now admitted he is ‘glad’ the plans – which included him playing Frodo – never came to fruition.

Jackson, whose latest project is a three-part Beatles documentary, told the BBC: ‘Paul said “i’m glad we didn’t do it, because you got to do yours and i liked your film”. But

i said to him “well, it’s a shame you didn’t do it, because it would have been a musical”.

‘that would have been 14 or 15 Beatles songs that would have been pretty incredible to listen to.’ Denis O’Dell, a producer on the band’s previous films, came up with the idea of a lord Of the Rings musical after the group read the books while staying at an ashram in india.

But tolkien, then in his mid-70s, prevented the plans from getting off the ground. ‘they couldn’t get the rights, because he didn’t like the idea of a pop group doing his story,’ Jackson said. ‘So it got nixed by him. For a moment in time they were seriously contemplating doing that at the beginning of 1968.’

For his three-part documentary the Beatles: Get Back, Jackson sifted through 60 hours of footage of the band recording 1970’s let it Be. the project, made with the cooperation of surviving band members Sir Paul, 79, and Ringo Starr, 81, is now available on the web streaming service Disney+.