A new biopic centering on the manager of The Beatles is getting a new director. Sara Sugarman will replace Jonas Åkerlund in the director’s seat for Midas Man.

Akerlund left the production of Midas Man for reasons undisclosed, according to Variety, which necessitated the change. According to Deadline (who first reported the directorial change), Åkerlund was “taking a break from the film,” but was unlikely to come back to production. Shooting for Midas Man, which began in October, was temporarily halted after Åkerlund's departure. With Sugarman now onboard, production is scheduled to resume next week.

Midas Man will tell the story of The Beatles through the perspective of their manager, Brian Epstein (Jacob Fortune Lloyd), the man responsible for making the band a legendary act. Epstein first discovered The Beatles in the music publication Mersey Beat, and he met the band at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, England in 1961. After seeing the band perform, he soon proposed to be the band’s manager, and in 1962, The Beatles inked a five-year deal with Epstein to be their manager, and the rest was history.

During his time producing The Beatles and other acts such as Cilla Black (who will be played in the film by Rosie Day), Epstein had to conceal the fact that he was gay, due to societal pressures and attitudes surrounding the LGBT community at the time. Epstein died of an overdose in 1967 and was inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2014 alongside legendary Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham.

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Image via United Artists

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Sugarman has just wrapped production for her latest film, Save the Cinema, starring Tom Felton and Samantha Morton, and has previously been at the helm for films such as Vinyl, Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, and House of Versace.

Midas Man is produced by Proctor and Perry Trevers at StudioPOW, Trevor Beattie and Jeremy Chatterton at Trevor Beattie Films, and Richard Holmes. Peter Dunne, Nicola Pearcey, and Mark Borkowski serve as executive producers alongside Sunny Vohra and Jeremy Rainbird. Jonathan Wakeham has penned the screenplay based on the screen story from Brigit Grant.

Midas Man is tentatively scheduled to be released in theaters next year.