“Man on the Run,” Oscar winner Morgan Neville‘s new documentary about Paul McCartney, is just not a movie about The Beatles. In reality, the story begins the day The Beatles broke up.
Within the first teaser for “Man on the Run,” which IndieWire shares completely, we hear from McCartney in late 1969 as he begins to marvel what on this planet he’ll do now, and the way he can ever reside as much as something pretty much as good as The Beatles ever once more.
“Wings was a part of it, nevertheless it’s actually the story of this one who has been on this trip to outer house with The Beatles. He’s been doing it since he was 17. He’s by no means recognized the rest in his grownup life, and he has to determine all the things from scratch,” Neville instructed IndieWire in one in all his first interviews discussing the movie.
“Man on the Run” premiered at Telluride this fall and was acquired by Amazon MGM previous to the pageant. As introduced at this time, the movie might be launched in theaters on February 18, 2026 and can then drop on Prime Video for streaming on February 27. Neville additionally revealed completely to IndieWire that alongside the movie’s launch might be a brand new soundtrack for the documentary of Paul McCartney and Wings music.
Neville’s movie highlights McCartney’s Nineteen Seventies, when he started the last decade residing reclusively on a farm away from the press and hypothesis about The Beatles. It charts his years-long authorized battle with American report producer Allen Klein over The Beatles’ music and fortune, how he navigated the notion that he was the one who broke up the band and rumors that he was really useless, and the way he managed to mature from a Liverpool lad right into a household man constructing a life along with his first spouse, Linda McCartney.
However most importantly, it’s a film concerning the music. Neville takes us on a journey by way of how McCartney recorded his intimate, stripped-down solo data like “McCartney” and “Ram,” which had been panned by critics of their day, and finally made it again to the highest of the pop charts with Wings for data like “Band on the Run.”
“We discuss how Paul himself has been coming to phrases with what this music means over time, as a result of on the time, plenty of these things was very painful for him,” Neville stated. “Paul takes plenty of licks within the movie. There’s plenty of stuff occurring the place it’s not working for him. I feel Paul now continues to be processing and nonetheless determining how he feels about all this, making an attempt to separate what was usually painful on the time from how this music has endured. Having simply spent years doing a deep dive by way of this catalog, it’s superb the quantity of unimaginable work he did by way of this decade.”
Neville stated that a part of what makes McCartney such a inventive genius is that he’s a “deeply instinctual creator,” one who embraces no matter he’s feeling when one thing sparks. Typically that produces “Perhaps I’m Amazed” or evokes him to journey to Africa to report “Band on the Run,” and different occasions, it has him recording a rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or an Previous Hollywood-style musical particular alongside a cartoon mouse.
“He simply makes stuff, and a few of it’s implausible and a few isn’t, however I don’t suppose he’s there to evaluate himself,” Neville stated. “I feel he’s there to make stuff, and I really discover that actually inspiring as a inventive particular person, simply that skill to not fear concerning the judgment an excessive amount of.”
Neville started conducting interviews with McCartney and different members of Wings and his household round 4 years in the past, and the ensuing movie is as remarkably edited and complete as any of Neville’s current biographical docs, together with the two-part Steve Martin documentary, the Mister Rogers movie “Received’t You Be My Neighbor?,” and his Anthony Bourdain doc “Roadrunner.” But when “Man on the Run” continues to be not sufficient McCartney content material for followers, there’s a guide about Wings arriving quickly that pulls from a few of Neville’s interviews.
Neville manages to squeeze some really intimate anecdotes out of McCartney, who’s as extensively documented and interviewed as any public determine alive. In “Man on the Run,” McCartney reveals his internal ideas from when he was in jail in Japan for marijuana possession, doubtlessly going through as much as seven years of onerous labor, and a narrative of how he almost drowned after swimming at a treacherous cliffside resort.
However what you’ll not see in “Man on the Run” is the now 83-year-old McCartney on digicam. Neville made the acutely aware determination to solely embrace audio interviews of McCartney within the movie, and it makes “Man on the Run” that rather more very important as a biographical documentary because of this.
“What you get from being audio-only is [that] it turns into a present-tense story. It feels such as you’re residing by way of it because it occurs, versus reducing to a a lot older particular person reflecting again on after they had been younger,” Neville stated. “One factor Paul stated after we mentioned it, he stated, ‘I don’t actually need to be an previous particular person in a teen’s story.’”
Watch the unique first teaser for “Man on the Run” above.
