Warner Bros.’ biographical drama about the life and times of Elvis Presley will no longer hit theaters this year. The studio has postponed the film from Nov. 5, 2021 to June 3, 2022.
Baz Luhrmann is directing the still-untitled movie, which he co-wrote with Craig Pearce. Austin Butler, who recently appeared as Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino’s “once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” is playing the man himself, while Tom Hanks is portraying his enigmatic manager Colonel Tom Parker.
“Elvis” was pushed back because it’s still in production in Australia. Sources say the film has another five weeks of material to shoot so it wouldn’t have been completed in time for its original release date. It started to film last March, but had to shut down production because Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson tested positive for coronavirus. Hanks and Wilson were the first Hollywood celebrities to go public with their diagnosis and have since recovered.
Despite its initial 2021 release date, “Elvis” was not part of Warner Bros.’ recent arrangement to debut its entire 2021 slate concurrently in movie theaters and on HBO Max, the streaming service owned by its parent company WarnerMedia. Warners has pledged that the deal — which has been unpopular (to say the least) among actors and directors in Hollywood — will not extend past this year.
The film captures the complex dynamic between the veteran manager and the young singer over the span of 20 years, including Presley’s stratospheric rise into the eventual King of Rock and Roll. Olivia DeJonge, Gary Clark, Jr., Yola and Shonka Dukureh round out the cast.
