The Beatles attempted to produce and star in their own Lord of the Rings movie.

The idea came from Denis O’Dell, who produced A Hard Days Night and Help!. With one more film left on The Beatles’ contract with United Artists, O’Dell thought the fantasy epic could be turned into a live-action adventure starring the band. The film would’ve been a musical featuring new Beatles originals. Paul was set to portray protagonist Frodo, John would’ve been Gollum, George was set to play Gandalf and Ringo would appear as Samwise Gamgee. The Beatles grew up as fans of the books. The band also planned to give the film a psychedelic tone.John was in charge of selecting the director and reached out to Stanley Kubrick. As luck would have it, United Artists were also interested in making a Lord of the Rings movie so the stars appeared to have aligned on The Beatles coming to Middle-Earth.The Beatles’ Lord of the Rings never came about for two reasons. First, Kubrick thought the scope of the book was too vast and dense to be adapted for film in the 1960s and turned down the offer. Second, J.R.R. Tolkien, who owned the rights, was concerned that his life’s work would be turned into a cinematic LSD trip by some young rockers so he turned down the Beatles’ request. Kubrick focused his efforts on directing 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Lord of the Rings films were later produced by Peter Jackson.