Documentary To Tour The World With NEON And Universal Pictures Distributing
“I’ve never been out of this country, except in the service,” said Elvis Presley at a press conference in 1972, alluding to his time in the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960.
Now, through a new documentary by Baz Luhrmann, who previously directed the Academy Award-nominated film Elvis (2022), the “King of Rock and Roll” will be seen by the world.
Titled EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert, the documentary will be released in theaters internationally in 2026 thanks to being acquired by two major distributors on Thursday, October 9.
Universal Pictures and NEON will give the film a wide release, with NEON posting on social media that the documentary is a “one-of-a-kind cinematic experience.”
While NEON is still fairly new on the scene, it has distributed two films that have won Best Picture at the Academy Awards: Parasite (2019) and Anora (2024).
Responding to this news, Baz Luhrmann posted a video to Instagram, saying, “Ever since Jonathan Redmond and I found the unseen footage that went on to become ‘EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert’ … we had a dream that this film should be seen on the smallest screens in the smallest towns, and on the biggest screens in the biggest cities.”
The footage used in the film was found by Luhrmann about seven years ago in Kansas. Altogether, he found 59 hours of film of Elvis that hadn’t seen the light of day in decades, and used the footage as the primary source for his documentary.
According to Variety, the footage that was found includes Elvis’ “Vegas residency in the 1970s,” and “rare 16mm footage from ‘Elvis on Tour.'” 8mm film from the Graceland archive was also utilized in addition to newly rediscovered audio interviews with Elvis.
To accomplish bringing this film to towns both big and small, he said the film would need a strong distribution team.
Citing Universal Pictures and NEON as members of that team, Luhrmann added, “Guess what? We get to be part of fulfilling a dream Elvis never got to fulfill, and that is, he never got to tour the world.”
Concluding his video, Luhrmann said, “I, for one, cannot wait to go on the road with EPiC.”
Watch a clip of Elvis speaking about his hope to tour the world, as well as filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s comments about the film’s ability to fulfill that dream Elvis never realized, here:
About The New Elvis Documentary
“In this film, because we were so lucky, over seven years ago when we were trying to make [the film ‘Elvis’], there was this rumored footage,” said Baz Luhrmann at the September 6 premiere of his documentary EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert at the Toronto International Film Festival. “I had the money to go to the salt mines in Kansas, and we found the footage — over 35 hours of it.”
Luhrmann then joked to the film festival audience, “So the film is 37 hours long.”
This was said before the film’s editor and producer, Jonathan Redmond, corrected him that there was closer to 59 hours of footage pulled from to achieve this film.
Regardless, Luhrmann then said that while they had all of this footage, much of it had no sound, as picture and sound were recorded separately in the pre-digital era.
To get around this, Luhrmann chose to let Elvis tell his story in his own words.
“We found an amazing thing,” Luhrmann stated. “We found audio of Elvis telling you about his life … Instead of people telling you about Elvis, ‘EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert’ is Elvis sings and — here’s the interesting bit for someone that wasn’t that verbal — tells his story like never before.”
Reiterating, Luhrmann said, “The storyteller is Elvis himself, and that’s what we set out to do.”
Within the 59 hours of film that was found, there was footage from two of Elvis’ concerts that audio recordings existed of, so Warner Brothers was tasked with syncing up the footage to the audio — a process which took nearly two years.
Luhrmann insists this isn’t a documentary or another concert film, but rather a “tone poem,” with Elvis communicating through song and words.
Presently, a theatrical release date has not yet been announced for EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert.
Watch the premiere introduction and Q&A with Baz Luhrmann, here:
