Elvis

Baz Luhrmann's chaotic, maximalist approach works for one reason: The story of Elvis Presley should be a mess.

Elvis is completely baffled when the girls in the audience start screaming at what his bandmate dubs his “wiggle” (the way his hips shake when he sings), but he quickly leans into it, and Luhrmann presents the ensuing chain reaction of hysteria with all his fizzy, over-the-top panache. Even at 159 minutes, the film can’t possibly cram every detail in, so instead Luhrmann just mixes in his favorite ingredients from the Elvis cocktail. Presley was so energetic as a singer that his producer had to place mics around the entire studio to capture his recording of “Heartbreak Hotel,” because Presley was given to jumping around while he sang. Hanks’s performance as Parker reminded me most of the heavily made-up goons he played in Tom Tykwer and the Wachowskis’ gonzo epic, Cloud Atlas. He’s buried under pounds of latex, sports a swollen nose, and delivers his lines in a heavy Dutch accent, alluding to his hidden past as a carnival worker from the Netherlands. To Luhrmann, Parker is the twisted showman behind the Elvis myth, helping him vault to stardom through some clever promotion but then trapping him in a series of gilded cages to keep him under control. Luhrmann understands how to splash that melodrama across the big screen in the boldest colors. Presley was a beacon of ostentation the likes of which may never be eclipsed.

The new film that features an uncanny and perhaps Oscar-nomination worthy performance by Austin Butler as Elvis Presley is exhilarating but also exhausting with ...

( trailer) ( trailer) ( trailer) ( trailer) ‣ Jugjugg Jeeyo (NR) 2 hr. ‣ The Phantom of the Open (PG-13) 1 hr. Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) is a powerful humanoid weapon, destined to confront an ancient evil capable of destroying the world. ‣ Elvis (PG-13) 2 hr. ‣ The Black Phone (R) 1 hr. What I enjoyed most in the film was the music, and some of the history of the music industry the film touches on. But there is no denying the energy of the film, particularly as it covers the early portion of Elvis’ life and career. The movie isn’t meat to be a factual documentary, but rather a spiritual experience of sorts, and Luhrmann takes plenty of liberties as most biopics do.

Elvis' longtime manager Col. Parker plays an oversized role, but that's not this film's only problem. There may be a great movie hiding in Elvis, ...

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In theaters this weekend, a new biopic about Elvis's life and the manager who pushed him.

Elvis is talented and loyal, and he desperately wants to be loved. Elvis is rated PG-13. The movie contains some strong language and depicts Elvis’ adultery and prescription drug abuse. The movie is at its best when recounting Elvis’ rise to stardom and his attempts to figure out who he is. He still looks like Tom Hanks, not the real Colonel. It’s just enough makeup to remind you Tom Hanks is in there somewhere. The lifestyle of a rock star isn’t family friendly. But about halfway through the two-and-a-half-hour-long running time, Elvis’ career peaks and we see things start to fall apart. I hate to say it, but Tom Hank’s portrayal of Colonel Tom Parker is probably the weakest aspect of this film. At about that point, the movie also starts to fall apart. Meanwhile, the Colonel is busy both promoting Elvis’ infamous wiggling on stage and managing the fallout it provokes. But just like Icarus who flew too close to the sun, Elvis burns out and crashes. The movie is written and directed by Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann whose other films include Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. Just like Luhrmann’s other movies, Elvis is visually stunning. He wants to promote the greatest show on Earth.

Despite an explosive lead actor, the Elvis biopic can't rise above its shallow, disorganized depiction of the quintessential rock star.

He was miserable and in tears and worried about the damage two years out of the spotlight would do to his career, while treating his time in uniform as new photo-ops. Olivia DeJonge is wasted as Priscilla Presley, the love of his life who left him drug-addicted and an overweight blob with a declining career, and the actors who play B.B.King, Hank Snow, Big Mama Thornton, and Little Richard have been reduced to the status of walk-ons. He comes out of the chute hateful, so there’s nowhere to go with the role. That tacky, feverish dedication to style over substance would appear to be a perfect fit for the crude but colorful story of a poor backwoods hillbilly from Tupelo, Mississippi who became the king of rock and roll. For today’s audiences, entertainment is all that matters, and Elvis has plenty of that in the title role, played by a glittery, overwhelming package of dynamite named Austin Butler. Apparently Baz Luhrmann did, because he put the young actor through a grueling two years of research, preparation, delays and hard work (the production wrapped in 2021) that resulted in a nervous physical collapse.

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic shows the singer in harmony with artists such as B.B. King and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. But how true is that portrayal?

“It isn’t exclusive to the Black man or the white man or any other color.” In his 1996 autobiography, Blues All Around Me, King wrote, “Elvis didn’t steal any music from anyone. “Music is owned by the whole universe,” King said in a 2010 interview. “That he was this weird little white kid,” George told Mojo Media with a laugh. But is that the truth of the era? “He was doing our kind of music,” Charles said. That lacerating sound bite, which went viral in 2020 and twice again this year, sums up a long-held stance against Presley. To some, he was not an extraordinary musical force, but rather a lucky culture vulture who made his name by copying moves from Black artists and covering their songs.

As Baz Luhrmann's biopic "Elvis" opens in theaters, here are the top 10 movies starring Elvis Presley, the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

But Elvis was never better as an actor than he was in “King Creole.” And he never made a better movie. Here, Elvis plays Chad Gates, an ex-G.I. who, upon returning home to Hawaii, rejects a job with his father’s fruit company in order to hang with his beach buddies, surf and swim, and work as a tour guide in partnership with his curvy sweetie (Joan Blackman). It’s one of Elvis’ most ingratiating performances, in one of his most undemandingly pleasant movies — with (except for the title song and “Can’t Help Falling in Love”) some of his most forgettable songs. (Elvis’ first song actually is an ode to crawfish.) The superior supporting cast includes Dean Jagger, Vic Morrow, Carolyn Jones (in one of her all-time best performances), Paul Stewart and Dolores Hart, and the songs include “Trouble,” “Hard Headed Woman” and the rockin’ good title tune. If you looked up the term “guilty pleasure” in the “Illustrated Dictionary of Cinema,” you’d likely see a photo of Elvis and Ann-Margret shaking their groove things and generating high-potency chemistry in director George Sidney’s well-nigh irresistible extravaganza. After beating a man to death with his bare hands in a barroom brawl (which, to be fair, he didn’t start), construction worker Vincent Everett (Presley) spends a year behind bars as the cellmate of a washed-up country singer (Mickey Shaughnessy) who teaches him how to play a guitar and carry a tune. But take a second look: In sharp contrast to the formulaic fluff frequently concocted for The King throughout the ‘60s, “Jailhouse Rock” actually attempts to package Presley as a semi-sensitive anti-hero with pronounced tendencies toward badassery. The King already had seven features to his credit by the time he made “Blue Hawaii,” but this frothy musical comedy more or less set the mold for what most folks now think of as “an Elvis movie” – lightweight fun and frolic, often in an exotic locale, involving a lovable hunk who sings and sways his way through minimally daunting challenges while encountering only temporary impediments to happily-ever-aftering with a young lovely. “However, I think one of the reasons the picture did not get the recognition I feel it deserves, especially in terms of its presentation of a racial conflict, is that the public was unable to get beyond the fact that Elvis Presley was in it.” He’s torn between a good girl (Millie Perkins) and a not-so-good one (Tuesday Weld), but winds up falling hard for the (slightly) older psychologist (Hope Lange) who wants him to be all he can be. Elvis is a co-star, not the lead, in his first big-screen outing, a creaky but compelling post-Civil War drama about a Confederate soldier (Richard Egan) who returns home to find his sweetheart (Debra Paget) married his younger brother (Elvis) after receiving greatly exaggerated reports of his death. While Young feasts on the scenery with relentless relish, Elvis goes the distance with easygoing aplomb — even during credibility-straining scenes where his character takes a licking but keeps on ticking in the ring — and Charles Bronson lends strong support as a seen-it-all trainer who suffers greatly for his loyalty to the young fighter. To cushion the blow for The King’s many fans — who, of course, helped turn the film into a box-office smash — the filmmakers superimposed an image of Elvis crooning the title song over the final graveside scene.

Beyond his concert specials—and Baz Luhrmann's Elvis—The King's narrative film career deserves a second look.

“Jailhouse Rock has that great production number,” Doll said, “but in King Creole, it’s just a man on a stage, and he has everybody in the palm of his hand.” As singing delinquent Danny Fisher, Elvis was in the best of hands with Michael Curtiz, who directed Bogie in Casablanca, Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood. He was also ably backed up by his strongest supporting cast, including Walter Matthau as a ruthless mob boss who insists that Danny sing at his nightclub, Carolyn Jones as Matthau’s good bad girl, and Vic Morrow as a Matthau henchman who tries to lead Danny down a darker, more violent path. It’s a “demanding” role in a film with something for everybody, Variety said at the time: “Indians-on-the-warpath for the youngsters, Elvis Presley for the teenagers and socio-psychological ramifications for adults who prefer a mild dose of sage in their sagebrushers.” Plus, there are decent songs, including the ballad “ Puppet on a String” and the unlikely dance sensation “ Do the Clam,” which was invented by choreographer David Winters. (He also created the Slide for Viva Las Vegas.) The title tune is a keeper (Bruce Springsteen has performed it in concert), but the film’s few songs take a back seat to the story. By the late 1960s, as he got his singing and concert career back on track, The King was “chomping at the bit to get back on the stage,” Doll notes. Blue Hawaii had 14, the best of which is “ Can’t Help Falling in Love.” But in the films he made prior to Blue Hawaii, which set the template for the rest of his screen career, Elvis took his film career seriously. The title tune is great, and “ Big Boots” is a lovely lullaby. With only three songs, it’s not your typical Elvis fare, but with a script credited to Clifford Odets, this was probably the type of prestige film that Presley envisioned for himself when he pursued an acting career. It was also his last attempt at a straight dramatic role following the box office success of G.I. Blues. Here, Presley is not an aspiring singer, but a troubled kid whose social worker (Hope Lange) inspires him to develop his writing talent. His best films show his potential: the raw energy, the presence, the commitment to embody a character that was distinctly not himself.

It's been a while since I felt beaten up by a movie. Leave it to Baz Luhrmann to end that lucky streak. And with a movie about Elvis Presley, ...

But as a document of the loving masses, and of the thrill of seeing Elvis perform, this is all apt. He grafted both of their fates into a contract that would render Parker into both Faust and the devil and Elvis into a dying machine, performing to his last breath with the helplessness of a man who seems to have no choice, but whose fatigue never dulled his love for giving all he had to give. In the end, we’re back in that hospital room with Parker, hearing the full, winding arc of his choice to sell out his and Elvis’ souls. What arises after this is the era of Elvis getting back to his roots, in a way, juggling the need to make political statements, as his performances in defiance of obscenity laws plainly did, with his desire to play it safe and stay out of it. In the end, it’s still up to Butler to do all of this and give Luhrmann’s style the soul it needs to make it all make sense. Elvis is in many ways, about “us” — the people out there in the crowd that the King, in his International Hotel performances, would make a point of gazing back at, turning up the house lights to give faces to the anonymous throng of superfans staring up at him in the dark. Colonel Parker is preparing us for a story of Elvis’ rise and fall, which is in turn the story of his own rise and fall. This is, after all, a story inseparable from the history and public sentiment that surrounded Presley. That includes the political efforts to ban him, but it also includes the attitudes behind those efforts — the Black styles and sounds that made even the white Elvis threatening. His wandering into a Black church and catching the spirit as a shoeless child in Tupelo, Mississippi, rings out with the audacious grandeur of an event that will change the course of history — which, in its way, it was. Parker tells us that the death of Elvis was in large part the fault of the public’s love and adoration, its unceasing need for more, to which Elvis became as addicted as he was to the barbiturates and alcohol that spelled his certain downfall. But we should know by now that the director of Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby will not give it to us in a straight line. He is our narrator and admonisher, the man with the megaphone and the whip.

We could, emphasis on “could” see the first weekend since July of 2016 where five films gross more than $20 million.

I’m not trying to get carried away, but in a non-Covid/non-streaming world, I’d be almost certain that $25 million would be a “pessimistic” result for this sure-to-be-buzzy chiller. It (along with Top Gun 2) is essentially the only big grown-up movie of the season. That would be a massive win for WB as it’s essentially (unless DC League of Super-Pets seriously overperforms) the Dream Factory’s only big summer release. Once upon a time, even Blumhouse’s first The Purge nabbed $3.4 million in Thursday previews and broke a record for an R-rated horror original with a $33 million debut. That said, even if it’s comparatively frontloaded, even a $25 million-plus debut (Dune debuted with $40 million from a $5.1 million Thursday gross) would be solid for the $85 million musical biopic. The well-reviewed Baz Luhrmann-directed Elvis Presley biopic is hoping to pull in the kind of older and/or irregular moviegoers who have been flocking (along with everyone else) to Top Gun: Maverick.

“Elvis,” a Warner Bros. release that carries with it the stamp of approval from the Presley family, is looking at a $30 million debut. “The Black Phone,” which ...

However, most critics seem to dig Luhrmann’s antic take, with Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman calling the film “a spangly pinwheel of a movie that converts the Elvis saga we all carry around in our heads into a lavishly staged biopic-as-pop-opera.” That, it seems, is mostly a good thing. Elvis,” Baz Luhrmann’s kaleidoscopic look at the “King of Rock,” grossed $3.5 million in Thursday previews, while “ The Black Phone,” a child abduction chiller from Blumhouse,” scared up $3 million. It should pull in $15 million in its initial weekend in theaters, but it also cost a fraction of what “Elvis” did, having a price tag of just $18 million.

'Elvis' $3.5M, 'Black Phone' $3M Previews; 'Top Gun: Maverick' To Half Billion: Box Office.

Meanwhile, The Black Phone, booked at 3,150 theaters, is looking to clear $15M-$20M. The Scott Derrickson-directed pic has very good reviews for a Blumhouse R-rated horror title at 87% fresh. The hope is that the $85M production gets a $20M start, which would be a remarkable breakthrough for an adult-skewing feature with that running time during the pandemic. Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby back in May 2013 did $3.25M from previews that began at 10 p.m. that Thursday. While that movie powered to a $50M opening off the star power of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, Elvis is different and contingent on much older die-hard fans coming out; a high-water bar considering the movie is 2 hours and 39 minutes. Distribution sources are expecting Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick to take the weekend in its fifth go-round with around $32M. The Tom Cruise movie looks to shoot past half billion in the U.S.-Canada today. Top Gun 2 made $5M Thursday, off 9% from Wednesday, to lead all films. Warner Bros’ Baz Luhrmann-directed Elvis has grossed $3.5 million from all previews off 3,400 locations, which includes Tuesday fan events and Thursday night’s showtimes.

One of those films is Baz Luhrmann's Elvis which just opened in theaters everywhere. The musical biopic looks to have a strong opening weekend and in its ...

Also, with the amazing word of mouth that this film is getting from both critics and audiences alike, it will be exciting to see what kind of legs this biopic will have. Elvis is rocking it out in theaters now and, until you witness the birth of a king, you can read the plot synopsis for the film down below: When compared to other films in this genre like the 2019 Elton John film Rocketman which made $2.3 million in its previews, is starting off on the right note. The one thing this film has in common with a success story like Top Gun is that it skews older. This biopic can be great counter programming to other films Like Jurassic World, Lightyear, and the upcoming Thor: Love and Thunder. Those are films that cater to a much younger audience. It also made more in previews than Scott Derrickson’s new horror film The Black Phone. That film took in $3 million on Thursday However, that’s expected as The Black Phone is a more niche genre film when compared to the wide appeal of Elvis.