Baz Luhrmann may have found his follow-up to The Great Gatsby: a biopic of Elvis Presley that’s currently being developed by Warner Brothers. The studio already has Saving Mr. Banks and Fifty Shades Of Grey screenwriter Kelly Marcel at work on a script, which covers some as-yet-undetermined span of Presley’s life. And while Luhrmann’s over-the-top style seems like a poor fit to tell the story of the Memphis truck driver who introduced rockabilly to white audiences, it might be perfect for a bloated, sequin-jumpsuited Vegas performer trying to resurrect his career.
One very positive sign is that Warners has already secured the rights to Presley’s music, which puts it a big step ahead of that Hendrix-free Jimi Hendrix biopic, for example. Still, the biggest potential pitfall is that Presley’s life story is so well-known, there may be nothing new to audiences who have already seen the King’s rise and fall documented in book, TV movie, semi-autobiographical film, and hologram form. Also unknown is whether Luhrmann will tackle Elvis before or after that Kung Fu update he must have stepped over Quentin Tarantino’s lifeless corpse to get a chance to direct.