Director Robert Zemeckis and Disney are in negotiations to remake Yellow Submarine, the 1968 psychedelic animated film based on the music of The Beatles. The potential deal would combine cutting-edge 3-D feature technology with the latest reinterest in The Beatles.

Yellow Submarine

A report in Variety states that Disney is working on a complicated rights deal that would clear sixteen Beatles tunes for use in the film. The report doesn’t say how close Zemeckis would  like to stick to the original, but song availability could have a lot to do with it. He won’t need the voices of Paul or Ringo, however, as even in the original the Fab Four were primarily played by voice actors.

Zemeckis plans to make the new “Yellow Submarine” in the same cutting-edge 3-D process he has used for other films like “The Polar Express,” “Beowulf,” and his upcoming version of “A Christmas Carol.”

The original psychedelic cartoon told the tale of Pepperland, a musical paradise under the sea that’s protected by Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. It’s a happy place until it’s attacked by the music-hating Blue Meanies.

It could be great like the movie Across the Universe, or it could be another Sgt. Pepper with the Bee-Gees disaster. The original was a phenomenal bit of cartooning contrasts which included rotoscoping incorporated into free form visions of a dying Victorian landscape, unusual Nazi-like villains whose horrors seem slightly surreal and almost laughable. It would be interesting to see what they can do with the story with today’s technology. It may all come down to a better script and not more bells and whistles.

The deal would reportedly include rights for Disney to turn the film into a Broadway musical, like the company has already done with “The Lion King,” as well as a Cirque du Solil. To be honest, I expected the Beatles Love Cirque show to more Yellow Submarine-like. So, hopefully they’ll pull off that magical world in a second Beatles Cirque collaboration.

The goal is to have the Yellow Submarine remake ready for the July 2012 Olympics in London. That is if the new Yellow Sub can make it off the ground.


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