Yesterday (2019 film)

Yesterday is a 2019 musical romantic comedy film directed by Danny Boyle and screenplay by Richard Curtis, based on a story by Jack Barth and Curtis. Himesh Patel stars as struggling musician Jack Malik, who suddenly finds himself the only person who has ever heard of the Beatles and becomes famous after taking credit for 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, 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 in May 2019, and was released in the United Kingdom and the United States in June 2019, by Universal Pictures. The film grossed $152 million worldwide against a production budget of $26 million. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the premise, performances, and musical sequences, but criticism for its familiarity and not exploring the concept further.
Plot.
Jack Malik is a struggling singer-songwriter from Lowestoft who plays gigs to tiny crowds. His manager and childhood friend Ellie Appleton encourages him not to give up on his dreams. During a global power outage, Jack is hit by a bus. After recovering, he sings the Beatles song "Yesterday" for his friends and discovers they have never heard of the Beatles. Jack begins performing Beatles 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 declines to join him, saying she must work at her day job as a schoolteacher, so Jack's roadie friend Rocky travels with him instead. After the gig, Sheeran challenges Jack to a songwriting duel, after Jack plays "The Long and Winding Road", he graciously accepts defeat. In Los Angeles, Sheeran's ruthless manager Debra Hammer signs Jack to her label and engineers his rise to global fame.
At Jack's going-away party before his permanent move to L.A., Ellie confesses that she has always been in love with him. Jack starts recording an album at EastWest Studios, but 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 spend a drunken evening and kiss, but Ellie tells Jack she is not interested in a one-night stand. The next morning, Jack and Rocky pursue Ellie to the train station, where she congratulates Jack but tells him she cannot be a part of his celebrity life. Jack returns to Los Angeles heartbroken and desperate to have a normal life again, while Ellie begins dating Gavin.
The record label prepares to launch Jack's debut album but reject his title ideas named from Beatle 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. Two fans approach him backstage and tell him they know he didn't write the songs, but thank him, having feared the Beatles' music was gone forever. They give him the address of John Lennon, who has survived into old age out of the public spotlight. John, who has lived a happy life with his wife, advises Jack to pursue the one he loves and always tell the truth.
Jack calls in a favor with Sheeran, who arranges for him to perform at Wembley Stadium. Jack confesses to the crowd that he plagiarized the music and that he loves Ellie, and has Rocky upload the songs free to the internet, sabotaging the record release and enraging Debra. Jack and Ellie marry and 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 John Lennon.
Production.
Writing.
"Yesterday" began as a 2012 screenplay, "Cover Version," by Jack Barth. Barth had been struggling to sell screenplays for decades, and conceived the story when it occurred to him that "if "Star Wars" hadn't been made and I just came up with the idea for "Star Wars", I bet I wouldn't be able to sell it". In Barth's script, a "meditation on professional disappointment", Jack did not find success with the Beatles songs.
An early version of the screenplay was worked on by Mackenzie Crook, who intended to direct; Crook 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 filmmaker Richard Curtis, who decided to buy it and rewrite 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 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: "[Curtis] 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" [Jack] 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 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. Ed Sheeran's supporting role was originally intended for Coldplay singer Chris Martin, who turned it down.
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 Sheeran had joined the cast and would potentially also write new music for the film, which would also include Beatles songs. Later that month, Ana de Armas and Lamorne Morris joined the cast. In May 2018, Sophia Di Martino, Joel Fry and Harry Michell joined.
Filming.
Filming began on 21 April 2018, with production in the United Kingdom starting on 26 April 2018, with scenes filmed all around Suffolk in Cantley, Halesworth, Dunwich, Shingle Street, Latitude Festival and Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. 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 de Armas, who played another love interest for Jack, were cut as test audiences felt it made Jack less sympathetic.
Release.
"Yesterday" was initially set for a September 2019 release, but was moved up to 28 June 2019, largely as a result of a copyright suit filed by Paul McCartney. The rights to some of the earlier Beatles songs used in the film would revert to McCartney in the autumn of 2019, and Sony Music wanted to get ahead of it.
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 $80.4million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $153.7million, against a production budget of $26million. This includes over () grossed in the United Kingdom.
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 (behind "" and "Toy Story 4"), then grossed $6.8 million in its third weekend, falling to fifth.
In other territories, the film opened to , including $2.8 million in the United Kingdom (where it finished second behind "Toy Story 4") and $2.5 million in Australia. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the net profit of the film to be $45million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues. However, Universal officially took an $87.8 million loss on the film, which "Deadline" deduced would eventually result in a $26.5 million profit after TV and video sales were taken into account.
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 63% based on 353 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The website's critics consensus reads: ""Yesterday" may fall short of fab, but the end result is still a sweetly charming fantasy with an intriguing—albeit somewhat under-explored—premise." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 55 out of 100, based on 45 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A–" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported 87% of audience members gave the film a positive score, with 63% saying they would definitely recommend it.
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."
Beatles' reactions.
Paul McCartney revealed on an episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that he and his wife Nancy Shevell snuck into a cinema in The Hamptons to see the film and "loved it". Boyle also sent copies of the completed film to Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara, as well as George Harrison's widow Olivia, and received "lovely messages" from both parties. John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, also approved of the film's depiction of her husband.
Comparisons.
As remarked-upon in the media, a number of other works have had a similar premise or theme involving parallel worlds or time travel. These include the 2011 French graphic novel "Yesterday" by David Blot and Jérémie Royer (the title, again, alluding to the Beatles song), the 2010-12 Japanese manga by Tetsuo Fujii and Kaiji Kawaguchi, the 1990s British sitcom "Goodnight Sweetheart", the 2006 French film "Jean-Philippe", and Nick Milligan's 2013 novel "Enormity". Danny Boyle has said he was not aware of earlier works with similar premises when he read the script, but had become aware of a French film and British sitcom with a similar premise.
The film was also compared to "Blinded by the Light" (2019), a British comedy-drama produced around the same time. This film concerns an aspiring British Asian writer inspired by the songs of Bruce Springsteen.