Yesterday (2019 film)
Yesterday is a 2019 jukebox musical romantic comedy film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Richard Curtis based on a story by Jack Barth and Curtis. Himesh Patel stars as struggling musician Jack Malik, who suddenly finds himself as the only person who remembers the Beatles and becomes famous for performing their songs. The film also stars Lily James, Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, and Kate McKinnon.
Yesterday was announced in March 2018. Filming began the following month around England, particularly Norfolk and Halesworth in Suffolk. Photography also took place at Wembley Stadium, the Principality Stadium, and in Los Angeles. The filmmakers paid $10 million for the rights to use the Beatles' music. Although none of the band members were involved, Boyle received approval for the project from them or their families.
Yesterday had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 4 May 2019, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States on 28 June 2019 by Universal Pictures. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and grossed $154.6 million worldwide against a production budget of $26 million.
Plot
Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter from Lowestoft who plays gigs to tiny audiences. His manager and childhood friend Ellie Appleton, a mathematics teacher, encourages him not to give up on his dreams. Jack is hit by a bus during a 12-second global power failure.After recovering from the accident, Jack sings the Beatles song "Yesterday" for his friends, who are all impressed and assume he wrote it. He quickly discovers that they have never heard of the Beatles, much to his astonishment. Searching for the Beatles on the Internet, Jack finds nothing.
Jack then discovers the band's records missing from his collection, and he realises that he is now living in a parallel universe where the Beatles have never existed. He begins performing their songs, passing them off as his own. Ellie has Jack record a demo with Gavin, a local music producer.
Following a performance on local television, Jack is invited by pop star Ed Sheeran to play as his opening act in Moscow. Ellie has a parents' evening scheduled, so declines to join him. Instead, Jack's eccentric friend and roadie Rocky travels with him. After the gig, Sheeran challenges Jack to a songwriting duel; Jack plays "The Long and Winding Road", and Sheeran accepts defeat.
In Los Angeles, Sheeran's ruthless manager Debra Hammer signs Jack to her label and engineers his rise to global fame. Ellie confesses that she has always been in love with him at his going-away party prior to moving to Los Angeles. Jack starts recording an album at EastWest Studios, but he cannot remember the lyrics for "Eleanor Rigby".
Hoping to trigger memories, Jack goes to the Beatles' hometown of Liverpool, visiting landmarks such as Strawberry Field, Penny Lane, and the grave of Eleanor Rigby. Ellie joins him in Liverpool, and they share a drunken evening and kiss, but she tells him that she is not interested in a one-night stand.
The next morning, Jack and Rocky pursue Ellie to Liverpool Lime Street railway station, where she congratulates him. However, she tells him that she cannot be a part of his celebrity life. Heartbroken, Jack returns to Los Angeles and is desperate to have an ordinary life again, while Ellie begins dating Gavin.
The record label prepares to launch Jack's debut album, but they reject his title ideas—taken from Beatles albums—and name it One Man Only, pushing his talent. Jack persuades them to launch the album with a rooftop concert in Gorleston-on-Sea. There, two people who also recall the Beatles approach him backstage.
They tell Jack that they know that he did not write the songs, but thank him anyway, having feared that the Beatles' music was gone forever. They give him the address of John Lennon, who never became a big star in this reality. Instead he, having lived a long, happy life out of the public spotlight with his wife, advises Jack to pursue the one he loves and always tell the truth.
Jack calls in a favour with Sheeran, who arranges for him to join him onstage at Wembley Stadium. He confesses to the crowd that he did not write the music and that he loves Ellie. Jack has Rocky upload the songs free on the internet, sabotaging the record release and enraging Debra. He and Ellie return to her home and finally are intimate.
In the morning, Jack equates his feelings for Ellie with how Harry Potter must have felt when he defeated Lord Voldemort. Ellie asks "Who?".
Jack and Ellie decide to start a family, and Jack gives up stardom to become a music teacher.
Cast
In addition, James Corden and Michael Kiwanuka appear as themselves, and Robert Carlyle makes an uncredited appearance as a 78-year-old contented John Lennon.Production
Yesterday was produced by Perfect World Pictures, Working Title Films, Decibel Films and Dentsu Inc., and distributed by Universal Pictures.Writing
Yesterday began as a 2012 screenplay, Cover Version, by American writer Jack Barth. Barth had been struggling to sell screenplays for decades. He conceived the story when it occurred to him that if Star Wars had not been created and he conceived it, he would not be able to sell it. In Barth's script, a "meditation on professional disappointment", Jack did not find success with the Beatles songs.British actor Mackenzie Crook worked on an early version of Barth's script, and intended to direct the film, but left to work on his television series Detectorists. The script was passed to the production company Working Title. Years later, while working on clearance rights for the Beatles songs, a Working Title producer mentioned the screenplay to British filmmaker Richard Curtis, who bought it and rewrote it as a romantic comedy. On Curtis's insistence, the screenplay is credited to Curtis and the story credited to Curtis and Barth.
Curtis told interviewers he did not read Barth's script, preferring to use the premise to write his own version. He told Den of Geek: "I sometimes found when I worked with original material that it doesn't come from the heart. So I tried to write a whole film that meant something to me, rather than having too much extra information." However, according to Barth, the final film includes many elements of his screenplay, including John Lennon as a wizened fisherman and a joke about Harry Potter. Curtis credited the Harry Potter joke to a suggestion from American comedian Sarah Silverman, who is thanked in the credits.
Barth complained that Curtis had taken sole credit for the screenplay and damaged him financially. He felt that Curtis had changed the story to make Jack a successful songwriter as a reflection of Curtis's own career: " met Rowan Atkinson at Oxford, he came out of Oxford and immediately rode Rowan Atkinson to huge success in his early twenties. He's never been knocked out, as far as I know. Why wouldn't become the most successful songwriter in the world?"
Casting
In March 2018, it was announced that Curtis and director Danny Boyle were working on a musical comedy set in the 1960s or 1970s following "a struggling musician who thinks he's the only person who can remember the Beatles", with Himesh Patel cast in the lead role. Boyle was convinced Patel was the right choice after listening to him perform the Beatles songs "Yesterday" and "Back in the U.S.S.R." during auditions. Boyle felt that Patel's voice had soul. Patel sang and performed guitar and piano himself.Later in March 2018, Lily James and Kate McKinnon joined the cast. Boyle informed the surviving members and widows of the Beatles about the film and received a reply he described as "lovely" from Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. In April 2018, it was revealed that Ed Sheeran had joined the cast. Sheeran's role was originally intended for the Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who turned it down. Sheeran said Harry Styles was also asked, which Boyle denied. Ana de Armas and Lamorne Morris joined later in April, followed by Sophia Di Martino, Joel Fry and Harry Michell in May.
Filming
Filming began on 21 April 2018, with production in England starting on 26 April 2018, with scenes filmed across East Anglia in Cantley, Halesworth, Dunwich, Shingle Street, at the Latitude Festival, and at Clacton-on-Sea. A casting call was issued for extras in overnight scenes shot immediately after Sheeran's four consecutive concerts at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, Wales in May 2018. A further 5,000 extras appeared in scenes at Gorleston-on-Sea Beach in Norfolk in June 2018. Wembley Stadium was also used to film a concert scene. Filming also took place in Liverpool, making use of Penny Lane, Liverpool John Lennon Airport, Lime Street Station and the Queensway Tunnel.In February 2019, it was announced that the title of the film was Yesterday. It is estimated to have cost around $10 million to get the rights for the Beatles' songs to be featured in the film, with the rights to their music being held by Apple Records and Sony/ATV Music Publishing.
Scenes with Ana de Armas, who played another love interest for Jack, were cut as test audiences felt it made Jack less sympathetic. De Armas appeared in some of the early promotional material before the final edit was made, which led to a $5 million lawsuit against Universal Pictures when two fans claimed they were "duped into renting the movie because was in the trailer". U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson allowed the class-action lawsuit to proceed in December 2022, stating that "At its core, a trailer is an advertisement designed to sell a movie by providing consumers with a preview of the movie." Wilson later dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that the "injury is self-inflicted" and thus no standing to sue. The judge also ruled the two men were responsible for $126,705 of Universal's legal fees; by April 2024, the parties had settled, with the men dropping the suit with prejudice in exchange for not needing to pay Universal's fees.
Music
The soundtrack to Yesterday was released by Capitol Records on 21 June 2019, 7 days before the United Kingdom and United States release of the movie. Yesterday featured several Beatles songs performed by Patel, with Adem Ilhan as the film's music supervisor. Licensing the Beatle's discography cost the producers of the movie close to $10 million. Daniel Pemberton was the film composer for Yesterday. According to Pemberton, "The idea was to get him comfortable with the songs and getting him to the stage where basically he could play Wembley Stadium." He worked with Patel to cover each song with a "very raw, human performance" style, as Boyle liked it, and refrained from over-produced sounds.Release
The first official trailer of the film was released on 12 February 2019. The film had its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on 4 May 2019. A local screening of the film took place at the Gorleston Palace cinema on 21 June 2019. Universal spent $75.4 million promoting the film worldwide.Reception
Box office
Yesterday grossed $73.3million in the United States and Canada and $81.3million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $154.6million, against a production budget of $26million. It spent its first five weeks in the top 10 at the US box office.In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $10–15 million from 2,603 theatres in its opening weekend. The film made $6.1 million on its first day, including $1.25 million from Thursday night previews. It ended up slightly exceeding projections and debuting to $17 million, finishing third behind Toy Story 4 and Annabelle Comes Home. In its second weekend the film made $10.7 million, again finishing in third, then grossed $6.8 million in its third weekend, falling to fifth.
Deadline Hollywood calculated the net profit of the film to be $45million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues and ignoring the UK tax credits on the production cost. Universal officially took an $87.8 million loss on the film in 2019, which Deadline deduced would eventually result in a $26.5 million profit after TV and video sales were taken into account.
Critical response
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film four out of five stars, writing "although this film can be a bit hokey and uncertain on narrative development, the puppyish zest and fun summoned up by Curtis and Boyle carry it along." Robbie Collin also responded positively in his review for The Daily Telegraph, saying the film "rallies in style for a beautifully judged and surprisingly moving finale, which owes a lot to Patel and James's chemistry." Owen Gleiberman of Variety, meanwhile, was less enthusiastic, claiming the film had little soul and calling it a "rom-com wallpapered with the Beatles' greatness." Laura Snapes of The Guardian called Yesterday "the latest jukebox movie to put its women on mute."