‘Elvis’ Helmer Baz Luhrmann Still In The Building; He Makes First-Look Deal With Warner Bros Pictures After The King Biopic’s 8 Oscar Noms
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: As Warner Bros Pictures continues to find its footing under new management, the studio on Thursday secured the services of a cornerstone filmmaker, signing a first-look deal with its Elvis director-writer-producer Baz Luhrmann.
The deal was made by Warner Bros. Pictures Group co-chairs and CEOs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy. This comes on the heels of eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture that the film received Tuesday.
Already the top-grossing original film in the Oscar crop with $151 million domestic and $287 million worldwide — the second-highest musical biopic gross worldwide — Elvis is poised to build that number further as the film returns to theaters across North America this weekend for a limited engagement.
For Luhrmann, the result is particularly satisfying in that it was the first major movie to be pulled off line at the start of the Covid pandemic; it fades in memory, but Tom Hanks was the first major movie star to come down with the virus days before shooting (Deadline’s scoop on that was our most trafficked story ever).
Read more on deadline.com