Production
Luhrmann originally sought out unseen footage from Elvis: That's the Way It Is and Elvis on Tour with the intent of using it in his 2022 Elvis film. Sixty-eight boxes of both 35mm and 8mm footage were found in the Warner Bros. film archives within salt mines in Kansas, including outtakes from both films, plus the "gold lamé jacket" performance from Hawaii in 1957 and unheard interviews. This footage, however, came without sound. Over the next two years, it was restored and synced to existing audio sources by Luhrmann's team. In this process, a 45-minute audio recording was then uncovered of Presley talking about his life story. All this material forms the basis of EPiC. [5] [1] Luhrmann has described the project as neither fully a documentary nor a concert film, but "something new in the Elvis canon... that befits the magnitude of Elvis as a performer but also offers deeper revelations of his humanity and inner life." [6]
Various images and short clips from the editing process have been shared by Luhrmann on his Instagram account throughout 2025, including one of the "gold lamé" performance. [7] On May 30, Luhrmann shared footage from EPiC at a Sony Music Vision showcase. On August 13, Luhrmann shared a previously unseen restored clip of Presley singing "Oh Happy Day" and announced that the film would premiere on September 6, 2025, at the Toronto International Film Festival. [4] [3]
Critical reception
Owen Gleiberman in Variety called the film "one of the most exciting concert films you've ever seen... Elvis in the raw, driven by the awareness that it doesn't get any better than that." [8] Radheyan Simonpillai in The Guardian praised the concert sequences but criticised Luhrmann's "refusal... to meaningfully hold Elvis to account." [9] Steve Pond wrote in The Wrap that EPiC combines both "offstage and onstage Elvis" into an "Elvispalooza (that) is fit for a king." [10]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 86% of 14 critics' reviews are positive. [11] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 88 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [12]
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