Baz Luhrmann has revealed that he is working on a stage musical centred around the life and career of Elvis Presley.
The Australian filmmaker, who is behind the 2022 Elvis biopic and the new EPiC concert film, revealed the news during a new interview with Dan Morrissey for Magic Radio. Luhrmann was asked about rumours he was considering future projects about the iconic singer, and thinking of doing a stage production next.
“It’s being worked on, it’s happening,” he replied. “I don’t know if I was supposed to announce it but, hey, I just did.”
He also added that while he is behind the project, he isn’t heavily involved this time around – likening it to how he enlisted writer and director Alex Timbers to take the reins on the 2001 film adaptation of Moulin Rouge.
“I’m not doing it because I have this thing I’ve learned… I can never go backwards,” he added. “I can’t be me when I was 28 doing Romeo + Juliet [1996], but I love handing it on. I’m not precious. I’m like ‘Take my baby!’”.
The aforementioned 2022 biopic was Luhrmann’s first project centred around Elvis, and starred Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. It went on to earn eight Academy Award nods.
Since it came out, Luhrmann has teased multiple times that a four-hour “director’s assembly” version of the film could be on the way, and has also created the latest documentary and concert film about the ‘Suspicious Minds’ singer.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, meanwhile, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last September. It focuses on the singer’s 1970 Las Vegas residency, features narration from Elvis himself from rediscovered audio recordings, and also utilises over 50-hours of never-before-seen footage that Luhrmann uncovered while working on the 2022 biopic.
It will be released in IMAX theatres on Friday (February 20) before a general cinematic release next week. Sony and RCA Records recently confirmed the full tracklist for the soundtrack, which includes remixes of classic live recordings and new mixes.
Discussing the concert film at the start of the year, Luhrmann told Deadline: “I wouldn’t call it a documentary, or a concert film; our aim here is to make something new in the Elvis canon … to 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.”
Shortly before then, the first trailer dropped and featured footage of Presley twirling his ring and tapping his foot before a show. “In 1969, Elvis returned to the stage to begin a legendary residency in Las Vegas,” it read. “For 40 years, there have been rumours of lost footage… It was found.”
