HANKS RETURNS TO OZ FOR BAZ'S ELVIS EPIC

Cameras are set to roll September 23 on Warner Bros. Pictures’ Elvis, the blockbuster musical drama from Oscar-nominated filmmaker Baz Luhrmann. The latest production from the director of The Great Gatsby (2013), Moulin Rouge! (2001) and Australia (2008) will command all sound stage space at the Village Roadshow Studio lot in Oxenford, Queensland, where actor Austin Butler (Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, 2019) will step into the blue suede shoes as rock’n’roll legend Elvis Presley.

The dramatic and complicated relationship between the iconic singer and his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker, will be the focus of the narrative, which Luhrmann has co-written with regular collaborator, Craig Pearce. Two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks (Forrest Gump, 1994; Philadelphia, 1993) will play the driven, volatile Parker, while Australian actress Olivia DeJonge (The Visit, 2015; Better Watch Out, 2014) has been confirmed as Priscilla Presley. 

Previously announced support players include Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Kindergarten Teacher, 2019; Secretary, 2002) as Gladys Presley; Rufus Sewell (Dark City, 1998; Vinyan, 2008) as Vernon Presley; and, British singer Yola, aka Yola Carter, as gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a key influence on Presley’s musical education.

It is the second start for the mammoth shoot, with pre-production halted in mid-March when COVID-19 conditions shut down filming in most countries, including Australia. The film earned unwelcome publicity when it was announced that Hanks and wife Rita Wilson had contracted the virus and would be isolated in a Brisbane hospital until they were well enough to travel home to the U.S. 

Re-energised by the confirmed shooting date, Luhrmann stated (via a studio press release), “We’re back to, as Elvis liked to say, ‘taking care of business!’  It is a real privilege in this unprecedented global moment that Tom Hanks has been able to return to Australia to join Austin Butler and all of our extraordinary cast and crew to commence production on Elvis.” Hanks has arrived in the northern Australian state to prepare for filming, which includes two weeks of quarantine before joining cast and crew on set.

The production is expected to employ 900 Australian cast and crew and inject an estimated US$105million into the local economy. 

Luhrmann is also producing the film, alongside Catherine Martin, Gail Berman, Patrick McCormick and Schuyler Weiss, with Andrew Mittman executive producing. Key creatives include are all longtime Luhrmann collaborators - director of photography Mandy Walker (hot off Niki Caro’s Mulan, for Disney); Oscar-winning production designer and costume designer Catherine Martin; editors Matt Villa and Jonathan Redmond; and, composer Elliott Wheeler, who scored the director’s Netflix series, The Get Down.

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is currently slated for release on November 5, 2021.