HBO Max has announced that Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis will premiere in September. Helen Thomson and Richard Roxburgh play Elvis’s parents, while rock and roll legend Austin Butler plays the part of Elvis himself. Tom Hanks plays Elvis’s mysterious manager Colonel Tom Parker, and Olivia DeJonge plays Priscilla Presley. The film was a commercial and critical triumph upon its debut earlier this year, earning $271.5 million on a budget of $85 million to rank only behind Rami Malik’s 2018 Bohemian Rhapsody as the highest-grossing musical biopic of all time.
The film’s opening at the Cannes Film Festival was met with a 12-minute standing ovation for Butler after he performed many of Elvis’ favourites. The film offers a look inside the life of a major cultural personality of the 20th century. Filmed from the perspective of his manager Parker, who is dying and thinking back on his time with the future rock and roll king. Their interaction is explored in depth during Elvis’ remarkable climb to prominence and some of his lowest points in this 20-year time span.
Luhrmann does an excellent job of depicting his meteoric ascent to popularity against the backdrop of America’s changing cultural environment and a diminishing sense of innocence. Production design that successfully transports viewers to another era has been acclaimed with the film’s acting. It follows the director’s preference for stylized aesthetics, so there’s a lot of glitz and glamour in the film, much as the late singer used to wear during his wild, campy shows. Luhrmann produced together with Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick, and Schuyler Weiss, and he and Jeremy Doner penned the script.
On September 2nd, Elvis Presley makes his HBO Max debut.
Synopsis
The life of Elvis is told through the lens of his mysterious business manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks). The film, based on Parker’s account, explores the complicated relationship between the two over the course of 20 years, from Presley’s ascent to prominence to his extraordinary renown, against the background of the changing cultural environment and the loss of innocence in America. Priscilla Presley, one of Elvis’s most crucial and influential influences, is at the centre of that development (Olivia DeJonge)
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