Baz Luhrmann's Elvis was a smash hit financially and critically when it was released earlier this year. Many since have been clamouring for a director's cut of the film, but Luhrmann has now said he won't be working on it any time soon.
The Warner Bros. musical biopic of Elvis Presley's storied life and career came out this June to rave reviews. Austin Butler is currently the favourite to win Best Actor at the next Oscars for his incredible performance as Elvis. Understandably then, fans were shaking like hound dogs when director Luhrmann said in June that the first cut of Elvis ran an impressive four hours.
In a recent interview with ScreenRant, Luhrmann shared just how passionate the fans are for an extended cut of the movie. “All my tweets are nothing but, 'We want the four-hour version! We want the four-hour version!' I think people are at my gates with pitchforks saying, 'We want the four-hour version!'” However, the director added that an extended cut won't be coming any time soon, but that he's still open to the idea. “Not now, and not probably next year. But I don't close my mind to the idea that in the future, there might be a way of exploring another [cut].”
Luhrmann explained that a finished director's cut of Elvis isn't exactly just sitting there, waiting to be released. “It isn't just like I've got it, and you just put it out there. Every minute in post-production, you have to do visual effects, grading, cutting, refining, and ADR sound,” the director said. “It's not like it's just sitting there finished, and I can just push a button and it comes out. You'd have to get back in and work on it. To do an extended cut, you'd be working on it for another four or six months something. I'm not closed to it, but not now. I'm a little bit on the tired side.”
Why not make an extended version? First of all, according to the director, it's not up to him. Warner Bros. still owns the film and they'll have to agree not only to release a different version of it but to put up the funds for the crew to complete it. Luhrmann thinks this could happen, given how successful the film has been in theaters and on HBO Max, but it's not a foregone conclusion. Warner Bros. Discovery's new mission to reduce costs landed them in hot water for cancelling Batgirl, after all.
The fatigue is understandable. Luhrmann has been working intensively on the film since at least 2019 when it was announced that Tom Hanks would play the role of Colonel Parker. To focus one's entire life on a single project for more than three years is incredibly taxing, both emotionally and creatively. Furthermore, the amount of footage that would be added for the director's cut is roughly 80 minutes, almost the length of an entire movie in itself.
Though other headlines on this story and fans on social media are teasing Luhrmann for being “too tired” to finish the director's cut, it's completely understandable. For fans, though, there's still hope that the four-hour cut of Elvis could be released in the future. In the meantime, fans may be tided over by an upcoming biopic of Priscilla Presley by A24.
Elvis is available to stream on HBO Max.
Source: ScreenRant