Baz Luhrmann’s new Elvis concert film could be making its way to Australia soon.
EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, which recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), continues the Australian director’s obsession with the King of Rock and Roll, following the 2022 biopic film Elvis.
With EPiC, which features a wealth of never-before-seen footage, Luhrmann reinvents Elvis’ time in Las Vegas.
“The movie is a revelation, because for 96 minutes it shows you just how intoxicating Elvis Presley was when he began to perform live in Las Vegas in 1969 and the early ’70s,” as Variety‘s glowing review praised.
Luhrmann originally planned to incorporate the footage of this Elvis era into the Austin Butler-starring 2022 film, but ultimately decided against it.
At the time, he discovered 68 boxes of 35mm and 8mm footage in the Warner Bros. archives, including vast outtakes from the Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972), the two major Elvis concert films, as well as audiotapes of unheard interviews.
Much of the footage was silent (though there was corresponding audio), and it all needed to be synced up, a process that took two years. Working alongside editor Jonathan Redmond, Luhrmann managed to fashion an exquisite concert film out of these raw materials.
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Following its premiere at TIFF 2025, Luhrmann teased the possibility of EPiC coming to his home country.
While release plans are still being decided, Luhrmann has promised an event screening in Australia, perhaps at the IMAX theatre in Sydney. “I always try and do something different and I do believe this film needs to have an event component to its release,” he told Variety AU/NZ in a new interview. “I make films that are audience participatory. I didn’t come this far to have someone watch it in an iPhone on their way to work.”
Elsewhere in the same interview, Luhrmann praised Elvis, the performer and the man.
“That voice — no matter what condition he is in, is never out of tune and he is always spiritual,” he said.
“I thought they would applaud but I didn’t realise the chain effect,” he added of the TIFF audience’s reaction to the concert film. “They were reacting to him onscreen as if he was actually alive.”
