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Feb 17, 2022 By Mark Redfern

Australian director Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet, The Great Gatsby) has long been working on an Elvis Presley biopic, with the project first announced way back in 2014. The eventual movie, simply titled Elvis, is finally coming out on June 24 via Warner Bros. and now the very first trailer has been shared. Austin Butler stars as Presley, with Tom Hanks as his manager Colonel Tom Parker. Elvis looks very cinematic, but also looks like it might have a lot of biopic tropes. On first impression, it does look like Butler might deliver an accurate performance. Watch the trailer below.

There have been lots of movies that feature Presley as a character, but a full-on big screen biopic is a long time coming. There was a 1979 TV movie, also titled Elvis, that starred Kurt Russell as Presley and was directed by John Carpenter in his follow-up to Halloween. It is notable because Russell and Carpenter first worked together on Elvis and went on to collaborate on several other classic theatrical movies together (such as The Thing and Escape From New York).

As well as Butler, Luhrmann reportedly also considered Ansel Elgort, Miles Teller, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Harry Styles for the lead role. Elvis also stars Olivia DeJonge as Priscilla Presley, Yola Quartey as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Kelvin Harrison Jr. as B.B. King, Alton Mason as Little Richard, Kodi Smit-McPhee as Jimmie Rodgers, and others. Luhrmann co-wrote the script with Sam Bromell, Craig Pearce, and Jeremy Doner. The film had to pause production in March, 2020 when Hanks got COVID-19, which made international headlines.

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