Baz Luhrmann has reasserted his intention to release a four hour cut of Elvis, cautioning that it’s not yet in a finished state.
Baz Luhrmann has once more been talking about his four-hour cut of Elvis, stating that his mammoth take on Presley’s life and career will be coming at some point.
When Luhrmann first revealed the existence of such a cut back in June, he didn’t expand on just how polished the edit was or whether it might ever see the light of day, although he did give a hint of some of the elements that ended up on the cutting room floor. He suggested that Presley’s relationship with the band and his first girlfriend, Dixie, are explored in more depth in the longer version, not to mention instances of Presley’s more outlandish behaviour. Mostly though, the extra hour and 20 minutes looks like it will more footage of Austin Butler’s Elvis Presley wowing fans on stage.
Speaking about the cut in more detail to Indiewire, Luhrman clarified its nature, stating “it’s a directors’ assembly. It’s not a cut. There’s a whole lot of material that adds up to four hours, but I have gone on record now to say not today, not tomorrow, but at some point I would do [it]. Because Austin did his concerts full out. He did all the numbers. Austin just did it and it was an out of body experience to watch him do those full concerts, so one day I will cut those full concerts together. We just had all the cameras. [Cinematographer] Mandy Walker even got the lenses reproduced from the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s to match exactly everything.”
So whilst the will is definitely there, it looks like time is the issue for Luhrmann as the cut in its current form is nowhere near the finished article.
Still, compared to other directors of his stature, he doesn’t have much in the way of announced projects right now so who knows, perhaps we will see this one sooner rather than later. We’ll let you know when we hear more.
—
Thank you for visiting! If you’d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website:
Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here.
Buy our Film Stories and Film Junior print magazines here.
Become a Patron here.
