Baz Luhrmann Discovers Lost Elvis Footage in Kansas Salt Mines: 'Like Raiders of the Lost Ark'

Baz Luhrmann and Elvis Presley: A Lasting Connection

Baz Luhrmann and Elvis Presley have become inseparable in the world of entertainment. At the Toronto International Film Festival, while discussing his new documentary "EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert," which showcases rare concert footage from Elvis' Las Vegas residency, the filmmaker confirmed that a stage musical adaptation of his 2022 film is also in development.

"I don't know if we've announced it, but there's a stage musical being made of the movie," he mentioned during an interview. This revelation highlights the continued interest in bringing Elvis' story to life through different mediums.

Luhrmann directed the critically acclaimed film "Elvis," starring Austin Butler as the legendary musician and Tom Hanks as Colonel Tom Parker, the singer's complex manager. The movie was a massive success, earning over $288 million globally and receiving eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Butler.

Now, Luhrmann is back with "EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert," a documentary that restores lost concert footage of Elvis along with previously unseen material from two classic concert documentaries, "Elvis: That's the Way It Is" (1970) and "Elvis on Tour" (1972). The film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, featuring IMAX and other premium formats. It recently premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

During a conversation with Steve Pond, Luhrmann reflected on how Elvis' Las Vegas residency marked a significant turning point in his career. He had grand ambitions to tour England and Japan, though the latter never materialized. Instead, Elvis became trapped in the confines of Las Vegas.

"We speculate what would have happened had he not been like a bird hitting its head against glass, had he just gone round and round the same circuit. He was not meant to be in Vegas more than once. He was there until the day he died," Luhrmann said.

The search for lost footage began when Luhrmann was preparing for the "Elvis" movie. He heard rumors about tapes that were considered mythical, with no one knowing if they truly existed. To uncover them, he sent a team to the salt mines in Kansas, where MGM stores all its negatives. The vaults were described as "like Raiders of the Lost Ark." It was there that they discovered 35 hours of negative, although there was no magnetic tape, so they had to find secondary sources to create the audio.

Working alongside Peter Jackson and the team at Park Road, who also contributed to recent Beatles documentaries, Luhrmann sourced the appropriate audio. The project slowly took shape, with moments of mixing and matching audio and video, using a combination of original vocal recordings, additional vocals, and orchestrations to create what Luhrmann called "a dreamscape."

Is this the end of Luhrmann's Elvis journey? He is currently deep into preparations for his upcoming "Joan of Arc" movie, yet he acknowledges that he and Elvis are now forever linked.

"I think I now recognize that, better or worse, Elvis is going to be part of my life for the rest of it, in some way or another," said Luhrmann. He emphasized that the footage in the new documentary is "the tip of the iceberg," with another entire concert at Hampton Road requiring half a million dollars just to bring to life.

"Somehow we're inextricably linked," Luhrmann concluded.