REPUBLIC ON MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR WITH BEAT BUGS

Republic Records will release the all-Beatles covers soundtracks for Netflix’s animated series Beat Bugs in November. Featuring new recordings from Rod Stewart, Pink, Aloe Blacc, Sia, Eddie Vedder, Of Monsters and Men and others, the first volume of the soundtrack will be an Apple Music exclusive for streaming.

The season 1 soundtrack of 27 tracks will be released 11/4 and include Pink doing “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” The Lumineers covering “Honey Pie” and Sia crooning “Blackbird.” The 26-track season 2 soundtrack will be released later in November and feature Stewart taking on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," Chris Cornell's Drive My Car," Of Monsters and Men’s version of “Eleanor Rigby,” James Bay’s “Hey Bulldog” and Tori Kelly’s romp through “I’m Happy Just To Dance With You.” There will also be a “best of” compilation.

Beat Bugs, from Aussie writer and director Josh Wakely who also has animated Bob Dylan and Motown projects in the works, will premiere 8/3. The target audience is small children and their parents.

The story of each 11-minute episode is based on a Beatles song; the second season premieres 11/18. The New York Times reported that Wakely secured the rights to the Beatles songs from Sony/ATV for $10m.

Netflix’s other musical series venture Baz Luhmann’s The Get Down, meanwhile, has had a rougher—and vastly more expensive— road to the screen, Variety reports. The 12-episode series, set in the Bronx in the late 1970s at the birth of rap, has costs its producer, Sony Pictures Television, $120m, making it Netflix’s most expensive series yet.

Costs have been ratcheted up by changes in the production team—two showrunners and multiple writers have been replaced—and to control costs, Luhrmann has been forced to run the operation himself.

As is his fashion, music is key: Nas is writing original music for each episode and Grandmaster Flash is a creative consultant and playing the role of historian. And, of course, licensing classic disco from the era is pushing up costs as well.