Lisa Marie Presley criticized the Priscilla screenplay before her death

Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley died early this year, and according to some emails that Variety somehow obtained, she pleaded with Sofia Coppola to reconsider the “shockingly vengeful and contemptuous” depiction of Elvis in her screenplay for Priscilla. The movie is a biopic about Lisa Marie’s mother and is based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir Elvis And Me, and Priscilla Presley herself was an executive producer on the film and was involved in the film’s promotional campaign.

But that didn’t phase Lisa Marie Presley, who emailed Coppola after reading the screenplay in September of last year and said that her father “only comes across as a predator and manipulative” in the screenplay and that, as Elvis’ daughter, she didn’t see him or her mother’s perspective of him in it. She went to say, “I read this and see your shockingly vengeful and contemptuous perspective and I don’t understand why?” Presley even told Coppola that she felt “forced to be in a position” where she would have to “openly say” how she feels about the film, Coppola, and her mother based on what she read in the screenplay.

Presley, who said that she was “worried” that her mother wasn’t “seeing the nuance” in the Priscilla screenplay and that her mother didn’t recognize “the intentions behind this film or the outcome it will have,” also alluded to Coppola’s own famous father, saying, “I would think of all people that you would understand how this would feel.” She also questioned the motivation behind releasing this film after the “ray of light” that was Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, saying she didn’t know why Coppola had to take down her father “using the excuse that you are trying to tell my mother’s story, but from your very dark and jaded reality.”

Presley sent these emails before production had started on Priscilla, and Coppola reportedly responded by saying, “I hope that when you see the final film you will feel differently, and understand I’m taking great care in honoring your mother, while also presenting your father with sensitivity and complexity.” In an interesting detail, an “insider close to the film” told Variety that Coppola made an effort to “tone down” some parts of Priscilla Presley’s memoir that would’ve been too “shocking” in 2023, and so it is “believed” that Lisa Marie Presley had seen a draft of the screenplay before it was “trimmed” ahead of filming.

That might mean that she saw a version of the script that she maybe never should’ve read anyway, but also it included things that were just from her mother’s book. Sadly, Lisa Marie Presley is no longer here to defend her position.