Peter Jackson making new Beatles film with unseen 'Let It Be' footage

Academy Award-winning "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson is creating a new documentary about the making of The Beatles’ "Let It Be," using material not included in the 1970 theatrical feature about that classic album.

"The 55 hours of never-before-seen footage and 140 hours of audio made available to us ensures this movie will be the ultimate 'fly on the wall' experience that Beatles fans have long dreamt about," Jackson, 57, said Wednesday in a statement from the Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd. and his own WingNut Films Ltd. The announcement did not specify whether he would both produce and direct the film.

"I was relieved to discover the reality is very different [from] the myth of disharmony during the album's production," he said. After reviewing the material shot by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, director of the 1970 documentary "Let It Be," Jackson said he found "moments of drama — but none of the discord this project has long been associated with.” He said seeing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr "work together, creating now-classic songs from scratch," was "fascinating … funny, uplifting and surprisingly intimate."

Made with the cooperation of surviving Beatles McCartney and Starr and widows Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, the as-yet-untitled film already is in production. A release date was not announced. Following its debut, a restored version of the 1970 film, unavailable since videotape and videodisc in the early 1980s, also will be released.