Those blue suede shoes are hard to fill, but Austin Butler is stepping right in.
Warner Bros just released the first trailer for their upcoming blockbuster biopic, Elvis, set to follow--you guessed it--the life of Elvis Presley. Often hailed as the king of rock and roll, Elvis is cited as one of the greatest cultural icons of the twentieth century.
The biopic stars Austin Butler as the king himself, with Olivia DeJonge as Presley's wife, Priscilla, and Tom Hanks as his manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Hanks begins the trailer by narrating,
“There are some who make me out to be the villain of this here story.”
As Butler recreates some of Presley's legendary performances, in the iconic white bedazzled suit, Hanks continues,
“At that moment I watched that skinny boy transform into a superhero. He was my destiny. Are you born with destiny? Or does it just come knocking at your door?”
The trailer shows Presley navigating his career and the controversies surrounding it, particularly his infamous dance moves. Butler says as Presley,
“Some people want to put me in jail, the way I was moving. I can’t move, I can’t sing. I’m almost forty and nobody’s going to remember me. I need to get back to who I really am. This could all be over in a flash."
In a press conference for the film, director Baz Luhrmann talked about his creative vision for the piece. He shared,
“In this modern era, Elvis couldn’t have been a better canvas to explore America in the 50s, 60s and 70s,”
Butler then chimed in,
"[The film’s appeal is] fundamentally getting to explore the humanity of somebody who has become the wallpaper of society.”
Elvis premieres in theaters June 24.
