Ready for the weirdest news you'll hear all day? The Beatles tried to make their own Lord of the Rings film during the 1960s. John Lennon was supposed to be Gollum. Paul McCartney was supposed to be Frodo. George Harrison was supposed to be Gandalf. And Ringo Starr was supposed to be Sam (of course he was).
All of this was decades before director Peter Jackson got his hands on the series and created an internationally acclaimed adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien books featuring Elijah Wood.
Ultimate-Guitar just uncovered a Deadline interview with Jackson from last summer in which he provided details of the failed Beatles project. Oh, and did we mention the pop stars wanted Stanley Kubrick to direct it?
"The Beatles once approached Stanley Kubrick to do The Lord Of The Rings," Jackson said. "This was before Tolkien sold the rights. They approached him and he said no. I actually spoke about this with Paul McCartney. He confirmed it. I'd heard rumors that it was going to be their next film after Help."
Unfortunately, none of it came to be.
More from Jackson: "Paul was very gracious; he said, 'It was a good job we never made ours because then you wouldn't have made yours and it was great to see yours,' I said, 'It's the songs I feel badly about; you guys would have banged out a few good tunes for this. You were The Beatles, after all. It's a shame we missed out.'"
There's little doubt the whole thing would've been a smashing success. The Beatles made five feature films throughout their short career, and we can only dream of the LOTR-inspired music the Liverpool quartet would've dreamed up.
Oh, well. At least we have Zeppelin's version.
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