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ABC News
ABC News
Health
music & pop culture reporter Mawunyo Gbogbo

Baz Luhrmann's Elvis to hit cinemas in June after a rocky start to production

The first trailer has been released for Baz Luhrmann's Elvis, a biopic on the life and music of Elvis Presley.

Elvis stars Austin Butler in the title role, and Oscar winner Tom Hanks as the King's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who had a complicated relationship with the star.

The movie is seen through the prism of this relationship.

Its problem-plagued backstory — involving the film being shut down after Hanks caught COVID-19 during filming on the Gold Coast — drove home the pervasive nature of the virus, even if it was early on in the pandemic.

Presley died in 1977 after suffering a heart attack, largely brought on by drug abuse. He was 42.

Austin Butler stars as Elvis Presley in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. (Supplied: Warner Bros)

A year after his death, his father, Vernon Presley, revealed in Good Housekeeping that his son didn't like to watch his own movies.

"Elvis hardly ever watched the movies he made because he didn't like most of them," Presley Snr wrote.

"He'd been given $1 million a picture, plus 50 per cent of the net, so he'd been well paid for his work.

"But he had never had script approval or control over the songs in his pictures, or over anything else."

Now, Presley's life will feature in a film by the Oscar-nominated Luhrmann, whose credits include The Great Gatsby and Moulin Rouge!.

Elvis is due to hit cinemas June 23.

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