Baz Luhrmann's Elvis gets a world premiere at Cannes Film Festival


By: Garry Maddox
Source: SMH
April 10, 2022

Australian director Baz Luhrmann's new movie Elvis, a drama about the legendary king of rock and roll, will have a world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month.

In what is shaping as a banner year for Australian film internationally, there are reports that George Miller's fantasy romance Three Thousand Years of Longing will also debut at the 75th festival and could even open it.

Cannes has officially confirmed that Elvis, which had a COVID-19-interrupted shoot on the Gold Coast, will screen, with Luhrmann and his key cast as guests.

Austin Butler, best known for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, plays Elvis Presley, with Tom Hanks as manager Colonel Tom Parker and Australia's Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley.

The film's selection continues Luhrmann's close connection to one of the world's most prestigious festivals.

He is the only director to have opened it twice, with Moulin Rouge! in 2001 and The Great Gatsby in 2013. And his first film, Strictly Ballroom, was a surprise Cannes hit in 1992.

Elvis, which explores Presley's life through his relationship with Parker over 20 years, had been about to start shooting in March 2020 when Hanks became one of the first celebrities to test positive for COVID-19.

It was not until late that year that filming could resume, with Hanks going through two weeks of hotel quarantine on the Gold Coast after returning from the US.

Launching the trailer for Elvis in February, Luhrmann said from Los Angeles that he was a fan of Presley growing up but that was not the reason he wanted to make a movie about him.

'The great storytellers like Shakespeare, they didn't really do biographies', he said. 'They used a life as a canvas to explore a larger idea ...

'Something like Amadeus, for example, it's not really about Mozart. It's about jealousy'.

Luhrmann said he wanted to tell a story about America that included Elvis 'jumping the race line' during the emerging civil rights movement.

'The life of Elvis Presley could not be a better canvas in which to explore America in the '50s, the '60s and the '70s', he said. 'That 42 years [until his death in 1977] is three great lives put into a short period of time'.

Made with the backing of Hollywood studio Warner Bros and Australian filmmaking incentives, Elvis opens in Australian cinemas on June 23.

The cast also includes Richard Roxburgh and Helen Thomson, playing Elvis' parents, Kodi Smit-McPhee, David Wenham, Luke Bracey, Dacre Montgomery and Kate Mulvany.

Luhrmann co-wrote the script and produced the film with wife Catherine Martin (who has won four Oscars for her design and costume work on his films), Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss.

Cannes is expected to reveal the full line-up of films next week, with Elvis joining Top Gun: Maverick as early announcements in a program that runs from May 17 to 28.

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