The Beatles movies writer teases director Sam Mendes is doing "amazing work" on star-studded films

Writer Jack Thorne is a busy man right now - and you'd expect nothing less for the man who recently wrote the acclaimed, award-winning Adolescence.

Not only is Thorne's latest project, a TV adaptation of Lord of the Flies, about to air on BBC and BBC iPlayer, but he also has numerous other projects on the way - including The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinema Experience.

The four Beatles movies — each one of which will focus on a different member of the band — are being written by Thorne alongside Jez Butterworth and Peter Straughan, with Sam Mendes directing the ambitious project.

Little is currently known about the films beyond their star-studded cast and the fact that they are all set to release in the same month in 2028 - and it seems Thorne is seeking to keep that level of mystery surrounding them.

The writer was speaking with us exclusively for our video interview series The Radio Times Writers' Room, in which we get to know what makes screenwriters tick, and said as soon as The Beatles films were mentioned that his answers would be "monosyllabic".

When asked how they are coming along, he simply said "fine", and refused to be drawn on how they will actually work in practice.

However, when it was noted that the films have an incredible cast, Thorne added: "We do, and Sam is a very, very brilliant man and it's amazing what he's doing."

Thorne was then asked whether experimenting with the form and structure of film and TV was a particular draw of his, given his work on the one-shot series Adolescence and now on the innovative Beatles films.

"Yes, but I think it's about working out what bits you should be certain about and what bits you can play with," he responded. "And that's the lesson that I'm still learning.

"I left Adolescence thinking, ‘Oh, we should be playful all the time, and we should just break the rules, and we should do this, that and the other’. And now I'm sort of going back to, I think it's working out what an audience needs in order to feel secure in a story, and then where you can start moving away.

"Lord of the Flies is very ambitious with how it uses image, with how it uses silence, with how it uses all sorts of different things, and I hope people are propelled forward all the same."

The Beatles films will star Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr.

Meanwhile, Lord of the Flies, a four-part series for the BBC, features a cast of young actors, many of which are acting in their first roles.

Directed by Marc Munden, Lord of the Flies is adapted from William Golding's influential novel about of a group of boys who find themselves stranded on a desert island following a plane crash, and attempt to form a society - an endeavour which takes a turn for the chaotic and the tragic.

Jack Thorne's interview for The Radio Times Writers' Room will available to watch in full from Friday 6th February.

The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinema Experience is set to release as a quartet of movies in April 2028. Lord of the Flies will air on BBC One and BBC iPlayer from Sunday 8th February 2026.

Add Lord of the Flies to your watchlist on the Radio Times: What to Watch app – download now for daily TV recommendations, features and more.

Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.