Prior to the film's release, it was announced that it includes 30 minutes of film footage shot for the band's 1965 concert at Shea Stadium. That concert was filmed by Ed Sullivan Productions and broadcast on TV in 1966 as The Beatles at Shea Stadium.[6] Consisting of 11 songs, the set was originally shot on 35mm film and was digitally restored in 4K resolution for the documentary, in addition to having remastered sound by Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer George Martin.[7] The Shea Stadium concert was only included in theaters, and remains unavailable on home video release.
Release
The film project was announced by Hulu on 4 May 2016 as its first documentary acquisition, as part of a planned Hulu Documentary Films collection.[4] The film premiered theatrically on 15 September, before debuting on the streaming service on 17 September.[5]
Box office
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years grossed $2.9 million in the U.S. and Canada and $9.4 million in other territories, including $1.4 million in the UK, for a worldwide total of $12.3 million.[1]
In the film's opening weekend in North America, it made $785,336 from 85 theatres, for an average of $9,239.[8]
Critical response
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 103 reviews, with an average rating of 7.9/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "We love them, yeah, yeah, yeah—and with archival footage like that, you know The Beatles: Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years can't be bad."[9] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating, the film has a score of 72 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[10]
Chris Jenkins, Cameron Frankley, Nathan Evans, Sam O'Kell
Won
Album
An expanded, remixed and remastered version of the 1977 album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl was released on 9 September 2016, to coincide with the release of the film.[17][18]
Lawsuit
On 12 September 2016, Apple Corps. and Subafilms Ltd. were sued by representatives of Sid Bernstein, the concert promoter of the 1965 Shea Stadium concert, over the ownership of the master recordings from the event. While the copyright of the songs was not contested, the footage itself was claimed to be owned by Sid Bernstein Presents, LLC, the company representing Bernstein's interests, who himself died in 2013. The suit requested an injunction against the release of the footage in the film, asserting Bernstein's ownership "[by] reason of being the producer of and having made creative contributions to the 1965 Shea Stadium performance, as well as being the employer for hire of the Beatles and the opening acts, who performed at his insistence and expense".[19] The company had previously submitted applications to the Copyright Office to register ownership of the footage, which were rejected.[19]
Paul Licalsi, a lawyer for Apple Corps., described the lawsuit as "frivolous", citing an agreement that Bernstein had with the band's management over the film rights, as well as the fact that Bernstein himself had never made any claim during his lifetime.[20]
