Before Elvis came out in summer 2022, the hype around the musical biopic had been mounting for literal years. Baz Luhrmann, an Australian director most known for his films Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, and The Great Gatsby, first expressed interest in the project in 2014, and by 2019, Elvis as we know it was officially announced. The hype only intensified as the movie got closer to premiering: By June of that year, there were 17 million trailer views and 44 million streams of Doja Cat’s soundtrack single “Vegas.”
The cast being pretty legendary pulled in a lot of that hype too. Tom Hanks was the first to be cast, taking on the role of Colonel Tom Parker (Elvis’s manager), and Austin Butler, whose performance received critical acclaim, is said to have beaten out Ansel Elgort, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Miles Teller, and even Harry Styles for the titular role.
If you still haven’t seen Elvis, now is definitely the time because it’s up for eight (!) Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, with Austin snagging his First! Ever! Oscar nod in the Best Actor category. Awards season is certainly off to a good start for him, especially since he took home the Golden Globe for Best Drama Actor a few weeks ago.
That said, here’s everything you need to know in order to watch Elvis before the Oscars air live on March 12 plus alllll the important IRL deets to fully understand his story.
Quick! Give me a crash course on all things Elvis before I see the film.
I gotchu, bb. Elvis Presley, nicknamed the King of Rock and Roll, is a bona fide musical icon whose career ushered in American pop culture as we know it today. The national attention that accompanied Elvis’s rise to fame, combined with his resonance among young listeners, doubly made him a cultural sensation.
But in recent years, claims that Elvis invented rock and roll have been debunked, and rightfully so. Notable rock performers that came before the King include Ike Turner, Ray Charles, and Big Mama Thornton. Despite ongoing debates about what Elvis did or did not invent, catalyze, popularize, or appropriate, his legacy as a rock-and-roll legend lives on in music, pop culture, and now film history.
According to the Guinness World Records, Elvis Presley is the best-selling solo music artist of all time, with more than $1 billion sales worldwide. In his later years, Elvis developed infamously unhealthy eating habits and prescription drug abuse, which ultimately led to his death in 1977 at 42 years old.
Got it! So, how can I watch Elvis?
Back in the summer, the highly anticipated film was released exclusively in theaters. But now, you can stream the movie on HBO Max. JFYI, any movie that’s produced by Warner Bros. hits the streaming service roughly 45 days after it lands in theaters. So what are you waiting on?!
If you need more convincing, Elvis is definitely worth being glued to your couch for 2 hours and 39 minutes. The film chronicles the icon’s career beginnings, personal life, and relationship with his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. And get this: Baz recently shared that he has a four-hour version (!!) of the project, so here’s to hoping all the superfans eventually get a streamable director’s cut.
