Director Baz Luhrmann, whose 2001 film Moulin Rouge! became a hit Broadway musical in 2018, has said his 2022 biopic starring Elvis Presley could “suffer” a similar fate.
“All my shows could naturally become musicals,” Luhrmann said, asked by a reporter about a possible Elvis musical, at a charity gala held in the West End recently. “I don’t know when it will happen or how it will happen, but it’s possible,” Luhrmann continued.
“Think of the role of Colonel Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks in the film, who anchored a pretty intense musical around Elvis,” he said, adding that the actor who played Elvis in the film, Austin Butler, sang Presley’s songs in their entirety during filming. “In the musical version of a movie you let the action flow. A live, on-stage version would give both the live performance and pieces of Elvis’ life given as a gift to the audience,” he was quoted as saying.
Luhrmann was present at the Teenage Cancer Trust gala, hosted by the musical Moulin Rouge! where he made all these comments.
The Elvis musical wouldn’t be the first production of its kind
In fact, a musical about Elvis would not be the first stage production inspired by the King and his life: Bye Bye Birdie, of course, debuted in 1960, and more recently, All Shook Up, a “jukebox” musical featuring songs belonging to Elvis Presley and inspired by a book by Joe DiPietro, premiered on Broadway in 2005, starring Cheyenne Jackson as a rocker named Chad who looks quite a bit like Elvis.
Whether or not that will happen remains to be seen. However, the possibility is quite high, given that Elvis (2022) has enjoyed sufficient success with audiences and has also received praise from the late rock star’s family.