This movie imagines a world without The Beatles. This. Looks. FANTASTIC!

I just did a quick inventory of my personal reference library in the home office. I discovered that I have 87 physical books on The Beatles and another 22 on my iPad. And that’s only a fraction of all the works published on the band. They were that important.

The influence and impact of The Beatles is incalculable. You can find bits of what they did in the 60s in virtually every bit of pop and rock that’s been produced since they broke up.

But what if The Beatles had never existed? Maybe Paul missed that church picnic and missed meeting John Lennon. What if Brian Epstein hadn’t taken the group under his wing? How about of George Martin rejected their audition and refused to work with them? It’s a great topic for an alternate history.

This question seems to have preyed upon filmmaker Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire). His new movie, Yesterday, imagines a world in which The Beatles never, ever existed. However, he has the memory of them–and their songs. You can see where this is going.

Jack, a middling songwriter, gets into an accident when the planet is hit by a weird blackout. He wakes up to find that there never was a Beatles.

Okay, I’m in. Here’s the trailer. Watch for the big where Ed Sheeran gives advice on the recording of “Hey Jude.”

Yesterday opens June 28.