Beatles: Eight Days a Week–Ron Howard’s Docu Strong in Theaters and Streaming

September 27, 2016 by

The docu, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week, is available on Hulu, but many fans prefer to see the Fab Four on the big screen.

After two weeks in theaters, the chronicle of the rock band has earned $1.5 million, an impressive figure for a film that can be streamed online.

“Audiences want to see it communally,” Richard Abramowitz, who is overseeing the theatrical release through his company, Abramorama, told Variety.  “It’s like going to a concert for them, an emotional, shared experience.”

Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind) Eight Days a Week follows the Beatles on the road from 1962 to 1966, a period when “Beatlemania” was at its height.
The film shows how the foursome stipulated in their contracts that they would not play to segregated audiences, and forced venues in the deep South to integrate.
A band members remember that they came of age playing with black musicians and sought to emulate African-American dominated genres like R&B.

“We played Jacksonville (Florida) and we heard that the whites and the blacks were going to be segregated and we just went, ‘Whoa, no. No way,’” Paul McCartney says in the film.

The theatrical version of Eight Days a Week includes 30-minutes of re-mastered footage from the band’s 1965 concert at Shea Stadium. That can’t be seen in the Hulu edition.

Perhaps it’s the prospect of seeing the Beatles rocking out to “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “A Hard Day’s Night,” or the strong reviews, but “Eight Days a Week” continues to add and hold theaters. After starting on 85 screens, The Beatles: Eight Days a Week is now on more than 150, and will be on 174 screens this weekend.

Abramowitz thinks that Eight Days a Week could play for years to come, like Woodstock, Stop Making Sense, and other musical docus.

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