Robert Zemeckis has made a lot of baffling choices over the course of this mo-cap obsessed portion of his career, like giving Tom Hanks blank eyes in The Polar Express and casting Ray Winstone, who really looks like this, as the buff bronzed warrior of Beowulf.

But a motion-capture remake of Yellow Submarine? That has got to be the weirdest, most inexplicable, most unwelcome project of all. Variety is reporting that Zemeckis and Disney, along with a gazillion lawyers, have spent months securing the rights to 16 Beatles songs and the original movie. And the plan isn't just to stop with the film; they want to have the whole thing wind up as a Broadway production, which pretty much will get rid of the whole mo-cap aspect, but money is money.

I've never even seen Yellow Submarine, and like most people, I'm not particularly wild about the album that goes with it. But I can't figure out for the life of me why anyone thinks this is a good idea, other than being a sneaky way to get the Beatles into another movie and get the baby boomers to buy tickets. Robert Zemeckis has made some of the most innovative and exciting movies of the last few decades. How did it all come to this?