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Baz Luhrmann is grappling with the mysteries of Zoom on his mobile phone from an apartment in Tokyo. \u201cYou can see I\u2019m a technological genius,\u201d he deadpans, as an offsider in Australia suggests swiping right, then going back to the app, then swiping the other way.<\/p>\n
After a few seconds, the Australian director of Strictly Ballroom, Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby and Elvis<\/a> emerges from the darkness. \u201cSorry, guys, I was busy landing the lunar module,\u201d he says. \u201cAs well as reinventing Einstein\u2019s theory of relativity.\u201d<\/p>\n In high spirits before Christmas, the 63-year-old filmmaker reveals that he is in Japan working quietly on an anime \u2013 a Japanese animation \u2013 that it is too early to announce officially. That would be a first in an acclaimed career with creative soulmate and wife Catherine Martin<\/a> that has extended well beyond his six feature films.<\/p>\n They have worked on operas, a musical, soundtrack albums, music videos and commercials for fashion houses and perfumes that play like short art films, the hip-hop series The Get Down, a Paul Keating election campaign, a theme park and designing hotels and bars, but never an anime.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not all. Three years since Elvis took Luhrmann to the Academy Awards, where it was up for eight Oscars including best picture, he is preparing to shoot Jehanne d\u2019Arc, about the French national heroine Joan of Arc, on the Gold Coast this year.<\/p>\n British teenager Isla Johnston<\/a> (The Queen\u2019s Gambit, Invasion) will play Jehanne, a 17-year-old who, possessed by divine voices and visions, saved France in battle before being burned at the stake in the 1400s.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very proud of what we achieved on Elvis, creating every frame in Australia,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cIt\u2019s a slightly bigger challenge to create medieval France in the Gold Coast but we have absolutely no doubt we can do it. We\u2019ve even got down to discovering that some of the best medieval jousters and horse riders happen to reside in Brisbane, believe it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n But before Jehanne, another Luhrmann project is heading for cinemas: the documentary-meets-concert film EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a dazzling whirlwind of a film that uses rediscovered footage from the King of Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll\u2019s Las Vegas performances in 1969 and the early 1970s \u2013 some of it found in a Kansas salt mine while making Elvis.<\/p>\n It shows how charismatic he was on stage in his mid-30s, years before drugs and overeating contributed to his death in 1977. You understand why Elvis sold more than a million tickets performing in Vegas over seven years, as well as more than 500 million records around the world.<\/p>\n There are two elements of the new film that flesh out Luhrmann\u2019s earlier portrait.<\/p>\n Behind the scenes in Vegas, Elvis is loose and likeable as he banters with his band and back-up singers away from the frenzied adulation of fans in the outside world. And while everyone knows the hits, it is a revelation how well he covers, with his rich, deep, soulful voice, the likes of Bridge over Troubled Water, You Don\u2019t Have to Say You Love Me and Yesterday.<\/p>\n \u201cHe takes the Simon and Garfunkel song and he turns it into a kind of power ballad, a spiritual,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cI call him Orphean. Orpheus, the mythical character, was such a great singer that the very rocks and stones would get up and follow him. Elvis could take a song and personalise it in such a way.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t understand the level of musicianship that he naturally had. He just looks at musicians and he\u2019s conducting with his body and his soul.\u201d<\/p>\n While researching Elvis, Luhrmann\u2019s team discovered 69 boxes that contained 59 hours of film negative that had lain unseen in the Warner Bros archive in that salt mine. Hollywood studios are among the content creators storing assets in climate-controlled vaults 200 metres underground, away from moisture, the elements and earthquakes.<\/p>\n It was archival material believed lost from two documentaries: Elvis: That\u2019s the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis on Tour (1972).<\/p>\n \u201cThey keep them in the salt mines because it\u2019s film, not digital,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cIf you have moisture, the film melts. The reason no one had gone looking for this treasure trove is that it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars just to open the vaults.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I went to make the movie, I had the funds to go looking for the footage on the promise that I might be able to save on visual effects.\u201d<\/p>\n While none of this footage made it into Elvis, Luhrmann and editor Jonathan Redmond wondered how to use it without just reheating previous documentaries. \u201cThat\u2019s where we came up with the idea of this being more than a documentary, more than a concert film,\u201d Luhrmann says.<\/p>\n They decided to let Elvis \u201ccome to you in a dream\u201d, telling his story in his own voice.<\/p>\n The 96-minute film was warmly received at the Toronto International Film Festival last September. Variety called it extraordinary.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s having an effect even on people who don\u2019t have much of a relationship with or even care about Elvis,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cHe is someone who\u2019s had many documentaries made about him \u2013 and some of them are very good \u2013 but they\u2019re generally other people telling you about Elvis. Not actually him telling you in his own voice and in his own words.\u201d<\/p>\n Among the never-before-seen material was 35mm anamorphic footage in good condition, negative with no sound because film and sound were kept separately, and 16mm of Elvis on tour.<\/p>\n Crucially, there was also 40 minutes of forgotten audio of the King talking about his life during filming for Elvis on Tour. One evening he started an interview but it was quickly apparent that he was too tired to continue.<\/p>\n \u201cElvis was exhausted because it was 15 cities in 15 days and he was doing three shows a day sometimes,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cCan you imagine doing that show three times a day?<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cElvis said, \u2018Look, guys, I don\u2019t feel physically up to being on camera but I\u2019ll just talk.\u2019 He was able to talk without the camera on, so you hear this very intimate sound. It just seems like he\u2019s speaking to a friend. He\u2019s very unguarded.\u201d<\/p>\n Some unseen Super 8 footage found at Graceland, Elvis\u2019 famous home in Memphis, is also included in EPiC.<\/p>\n It took more than two years for all this footage to be restored by Peter Jackson\u2019s Park Road Post Production in Wellington, New Zealand, and enhanced to cinema quality. Many of the audio tracks did not sync to the footage, so they used lip-reading to match them.<\/p>\n Luhrmann raves about Jackson\u2019s contribution to EPiC. Given the King never performed outside North America, the film is \u201cthe world tour Elvis never got to have\u201d.<\/p>\n Jackson made his own terrific documentary crafted from unused and recycled footage, the almost eight-hour-long The Beatles: Get Back (2021) on Disney+, but Luhrmann never considered making a streaming series.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s called EPiC because Elvis, as a performer, was epic,\u201d he says. \u201cIt had to be a big-screen experience. It had to be a theatrical experience. It had to be as if you were there.\u201d<\/p>\n So what did he learn about Elvis from all this rediscovered footage?<\/p>\n \u201cI never realised how funny he was,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cAnd you get so clearly that he is so, so, so comfortable on stage but so uncomfortable off stage.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see him on stage, you feel like he\u2019s in your lounge room hanging out. I think this is true of many of the real greats: the love they get when they\u2019re on stage makes them feel still and peaceful. It\u2019s the best version of them.<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cOff stage [away from their musical collaborators] they\u2019re nervous and insecure and don\u2019t feel worthy.\u201d<\/p>\n The line begins to break up as, with the interview running long, Luhrmann heads downstairs and then asks for a moment to get into a taxi. He gives the driver a destination then returns to his answer.<\/p>\n \u201cOne really well-known person, who I won\u2019t mention, but she\u2019s a legend, said to me, \u2018No human is built to be that famous\u2019,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a level of fame that humanity has trouble dealing with and there\u2019s only a handful of people who have ever been as famous as Elvis.\u201d<\/p>\n That fame was built on more than just his singing voice and stage persona.<\/p>\n \u201cElvis came up with the idea of turning karate into dance,\u201d Luhrmann says. \u201cAt the time \u2026 hip hop was also turning martial arts into dance but Elvis created a movement style.<\/p>\n![\"Baz](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/f2ec7e9ddc99c8b80f6b096f1477bc07a9e6f50d.jpeg\")
Baz Lurhmann\u2019s latest project is documentary-meets-concert film EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/eeca7cd0b273182f4e99f7af3497c60a424f70b6.jpeg\")
A scene from EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert. During his career the King never performed outside North America.Universal<\/p>\n![\"Luhrmann](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/715ea93416ce48724570eddd03ca63cf88ca11f8.jpeg\")
Luhrmann and Catherine Martin with Elvis\u2019 Austin Butler at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in 2023.WireImage<\/p>\n![\"\u201cElvis,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/dc6dba00892eeabe213fc6629b0825c3c66418c5.jpeg\")
\u201cElvis, as a performer, was epic,\u201d Luhrmann says.Universal<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/39f90466b0acd96d29cd709170d247e4cc149d8e.jpeg\")
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Baz Luhrmann: \u201cIt\u2019s having an effect even on people who don\u2019t even care about Elvis,\u201d the director says of his new film.Getty Images for IMDb<\/p>\n![\"Baz](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/a55b8319ceccfe59cff75aee68e50c3573c25e22.jpeg\")
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