EXCLUSIVE: As Warner Bros. Footage continues to search out its footing below new administration, the studio immediately secured the companies of a cornerstone filmmaker, signing a primary look take care of its Elvis director/author/producer Baz Luhrmann.
The deal was made by Warner Bros. Footage Group Co-Chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. This comes on the heels of eight Academy Award nominations together with Finest Image that the movie obtained Tuesday. Already the highest grossing unique movie within the Oscar crop with $151 million home and $287 million worldwide — the second highest musical biopic gross WW — Elvis is poised to construct that quantity additional, because the movie returns to theaters throughout North America this weekend for a restricted engagement.
For Luhrmann, the result’s significantly satisfying in that it was the primary main film to be pulled off line on the stars of the Covid pandemic; it fades in reminiscence, however Tom Hanks was the primary main film star to return down with the virus days earlier than capturing (Deadline’s scoop on that was our most trafficked story ever). Hanks recovered, and shortly each manufacturing in Hollywood shuttered because the world self-quarantined. Luhrmann held the manufacturing collectively, and the down time allowed him to additional hone the movie, and for Finest Actor nominee Austin Butler to reside within the pores and skin of the long-lasting Presley for very long time.
“Baz Luhrmann is among the most singular filmmakers in fashionable cinema, and we couldn’t be extra excited to announce that Warner Bros. is constant our affiliation with him,” De Luca and Abdy stated. “The large success of Elvis, which helped drive audiences of all ages and an entire new technology again to theaters, proves Baz stays forward of the curve and on the forefront of the popular culture zeitgeist. He not solely continues to evolve the movie medium, however he additionally creates a giant display screen expertise that’s actually like no different. He’s a one-of-a-kind artist who has established his personal cinematic language inherent in each challenge he takes on, extending to the music he infuses into his work, and we not solely congratulate him on this week’s eight Oscar nominations, but in addition sit up for our future endeavors collectively on the massive display screen.”
Austin Butler in ‘Elvis’
Warner Bros
Luhrmann has lengthy been a innovative filmmaker with a singularly visceral visible talent and a nostril for expertise, evident in all the pieces from Strictly Ballroom to reigniting the musical with the Nicole Kidman-starrer Moulin Rouge!, to blowing the mud off a Shakespeare traditional with Romeo + Juliet, which helped launched Leonardo DiCaprio to superstardom. He additionally directed the Kidman and Hugh Jackman-starrer Australia and The Nice Gatsby with DiCaprio. Luhrmann has all the time breathed the modern into interval fare, Elvis Presley with Doja Cat, a lot as he did with the Jazz Age The Nice Gatsby through Jay-Z and rising star Lana Del Rey. His musical collaborators have included David Bowie, Elton John and Måneskin, and his soundtracks have garnered a number of Grammy Award nominations. After selecting Butler over quite a few contenders for the Elvis position, Butler is quick rising as an A-list actor.
Beneath the deal, Luhrmann will develop and direct unique function materials, however is ready to direct outdoors initiatives as properly.
Apart from his display screen work, Moulin Rouge! The Musical gained 10 Tony Awards (the many of the 2020-2019 season), including to the 2 Tony Awards garnered by Luhrmann’s manufacturing of Puccini’s opera La Bohème on Broadway in 2003. On the TV collection entrance, he collaborated with Netflix on the 2016 collection The Get Down, primarily based the formation of hip-hop in Nineteen Seventies South Bronx, and Faraway Downs, a six-part Hulu collection reimagining 2008’s Australia.
Lurhmann is represented by Robert Newman at WME and Bob Wallerstein at Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof + Fishman LLP.
