Elvis + Baz = EPiC: Everything we know about Baz Luhrmann's upcoming Elvis Presley film

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2 days ago

"EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert."
That's the title of director Baz Luhrmann's upcoming movie — a title both obvious and brilliant, with an acronym so inevitable it's a shock nobody thought of it before.
Here's what we know so far about the project, which if nothing else offers more evidence that Elvis — who died almost 50 years ago — has never really "left the building." (You can find him and his music in movie houses right now, referenced throughout Disney's new live-action "Lilo & Stitch," which in just two weeks of release has become the second biggest box-office hit of 2025, behind "A Minecraft Movie.")
We'll use Elvis song titles for this story's "chapters."
In 2022, Australian director Baz Luhrmann released his sixth feature film, "Elvis," an inventive and, yes, epic biopic about the King of Rock 'n' Roll. The movie was a hip-shaking runaway hit, grossing close to $290 million at the worldwide box office and earning eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Austin Butler, who was propelled to stardom).
Shot over the course of a year in Australia, the film's production was grueling, and had been preceded by years of research that included multiple trips by Luhrmann and his staff to the Graceland archives and other Elvis sites. Nevertheless, Luhrmann, after the release of "Elvis," almost immediately began teasing plans for an Elvis documentary, to make use of the extensive footage and audio he uncovered that had not previously been seen or heard by the public.
Elvis Presley Enterprises managing partner Joel Weinshanker confirmed that Luhrmann was working on a second Elvis film during an Elvis Week panel discussion at the Graceland Soundstage in 2024. 'I probably really shouldn't say that,' Weinshanker cracked, after letting the cat — or "Hillbilly Cat," to cite one of Elvis' 1950s nicknames — out of the bag. 'Oops — sorry, Baz."
Later, it was revealed that the documentary would be a project of Sony Music Vision; Bazmark, the company founded by Luhrmann and his wife, designer/producer Catherine Martin; and a new production company, Authentic Studios, an offshoot of Weinshanker's Authentic Brands Group, which licenses "likeness" rights for such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe and Muhammad Ali.
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Luhrmann announced that his new Elvis film will be titled "EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert" on May 29 — first on his Instagram account, then onstage at the Sony Music Vision "content showcase" in Los Angeles, an event that also touted such upcoming projects as a Barbra Streisand documentary and a concert tour film about the rock band Oasis.
Also on Instagram, Luhrmann shared a brief montage of Elvis-in-concert footage. "During the making of ELVIS, we went on a search for rumored unseen footage from the iconic 1970s concert films Elvis: That's The Way It Is and Elvis on Tour," he wrote, in a May 30 Instagram letter to fans. "I had researchers go into the Warners Bros. film vaults buried in underground salt mines and, to the astonishment of all, we uncovered 68 boxes of film negative, as well as unseen 8mm footage. It has taken two years to restore the footage to a quality that it has never been projected at previously, while the team had to meticulously claw back sound from the many, unconventional sources that were also unearthed. One of the great finds has been unheard recordings of Elvis talking about his life and his music."
Luhrmann said the film will weave "never-before-seen footage" with "iconic performances that have never been presented in this way, from the 1970 Vegas show, on tour in 1972 and even precious moments of the 1957 'gold jacket' performance in Hawaii. Most importantly, Elvis will sing and tell you about his life in first person, through both classic and contemporary musical prisms.'
So, Luhrmann is crafting the definitive Elvis-in-concert documentary, eh? Not so fast.
On Instagram, the director wrote that "EPiC" is "not specifically a documentary, nor a concert film." In an interview with the entertainment website, Deadline, he added: "Our aim is to make something new in the Elvis canon."
"EPiC" will "bring something to the screen that befits the magnitude of Elvis as a performer but also offers deeper revelations of his humanity and inner life," Luhrmann told Deadline.
Sonically speaking, the director's reference to "classic and contemporary musical prisms" on his Instagram post suggests the film could contain radically remixed Elvis recordings and diverse covers of Elvis songs, much as the biopic "Elvis" incorporated hip-hop and other post-Elvis forms into the soundtrack, to suggest the timeless nature and continuing influence of Presley's music.
Wrestling those 68 boxes of footage and all the rest of the tape into feature film form will be a formidable if fascinating challenge for Luhrmann and editor Jonathan Redmond (who was Oscar-nominated for his editing of "Elvis," and also edited Luhrmann's 2013 version of "The Great Gatsby"). It seems certain that Luhrmann — an advocate of the big-screen, big-sound experience — will insist that the movie receive a theatrical run before it becomes available for home viewing, but no release date has been announced. Our bet would be late 2026 or 2027, to tie the movie in with the hoopla that will accompany Graceland's recognition of the 50th anniversary of Presley's death on Aug. 16, 1977, at the age of 42.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: New Elvis film from Baz Luhrmann will be 'EPiC': Everything we know