{"id":2305154,"date":"2026-02-28T15:34:35","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2305154"},"modified":"2026-02-28T15:34:35","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T15:34:35","slug":"i-was-meant-to-meet-him-and-become-his-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/i-was-meant-to-meet-him-and-become-his-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;I was meant to meet him and become his friend\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2026%2F02%2F122190338.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Baz Luhrmann remembers exactly where he was on August 16, 1977 \u2014 the day the King of Rock and Roll left the building.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis kid gets on a bus and hears Elvis Presley died,\u201d Luhrmann, 63, told The Post of his 14-year-old self back in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Rattled by the tragic news, the teenager then had a spooky premonition.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI went, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s not right. I was meant to meet him and become his friend.\u2019 Weird, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cEPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert\u201d features never-before-seen footage of Elvis performing in his legendary Las Vegas residency.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Forty eight years later, the \u201cMoulin Rouge\u201d and \u201cGreat Gatsby\u201d director has, in a way, turned into Presley\u2019s most loyal companion.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module aligncenter\">\n<div class=\"inline-module inline-module--more inline-module--columnist inline-module--more--thirds\">\n<div class=\"inline-module__inner\">\n<h2 class=\"inline-module__heading subsection-heading subsection-heading--single-line \">\n\t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"subsection-heading__sub\">Johnny Oleksinski<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Luhrmann has devoted much of the past decade to the iconic musician. In that time, he\u2019s helped shake off the cartoonish, sweaty \u201cfat suit\u201d image that\u2019s shackled Elvis\u2019 cultural memory and dwarfed his stratospheric talent, while introducing the genius singer to younger generations.<\/p>\n<p>The director started with the sexy 2022 biopic <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2022\/06\/23\/elvis-review-austin-butler-dazzles-as-the-king\/\">\u201cElvis\u201d starring Austin Butler <\/a>and has just doubled down with \u201cEPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,\u201d <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/07\/entertainment\/incredible-long-lost-elvis-footage-unearthed-in-thrilling-new-epic-doc\/\">his revelatory half-gig-half-documentary <\/a>of mostly never-before-seen performance footage that\u2019s now in theaters.<\/p>\n<p>Improbably, one of Hollywood\u2019s most dazzling showmen has made that \u201cHound Dog\u201d guy in the white jumpsuit who your grandparents liked cool again.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like it kind of happened by complete accident,\u201d Luhrmann said. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m not Elvis\u2019 friend, but I feel I know him as a person \u2014 probably in a quite profound way.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Luhrmann said he felt connected to Elvis as a teenage: \u201cI was meant to meet him and become his friend.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If the Oscar-nominated Butler movie reminded audiences that Presley was musically vital, effortlessly sexy and human, what\u2019s the director\u2019s lofty goal with \u201cEPiC\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe wanted to give him the world tour he never had,\u201d Luhrmann said.<\/p>\n<p>That unlikely journey to fulfill Presley\u2019s unrealized dream began during production of \u201cElvis,\u201d when Warner Bros. granted Luhrmann access to its Kansas City, MO, underground salt mines where the studio stores valuable, old negatives.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI accidentally found this footage,\u201d Luhrmann said of the previously rumored film of Presley\u2019s famous International Hotel residency in Las Vegas that lasted from 1969 to 1976 as well as stops on his US tour.<\/p>\n<p>He found a lot of footage \u2014 some 65 boxes of 8 mm and 35mm film of the early part of his Nevada stint, other national shows and goings-on behind the scenes that were meant for an unreleased doc.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><figcaption>The director stumbled on 65 boxes of thought-to-be-lost footage of Elvis.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Yet, a trove though it was, it was soundless and in bad shape. So Luhrmann turned to his friend Peter Jackson (\u201cLord of the Rings\u201d) to help restore the buried treasure. Jackson had done similarly remarkable work on 2021\u2019s \u201cThe Beatles: Get Back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fans did their part, too. To get the audio, crafty Lurhmann sought help from the passionate community of obsessive King collectors and a somewhat more down-and-dirty element.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a big black market [for] trading,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Back in September, Luhrmann got laughs onstage <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/09\/07\/entertainment\/incredible-long-lost-elvis-footage-unearthed-in-thrilling-new-epic-doc\/\">at the Toronto International Film Festival premiere <\/a>when he described meeting shadowy sellers in parking lots. Now, \u201csomeone told me, you better turn that down or you\u2019ll get whacked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><figcaption>It took two years to match the film with sound recordings that Luhrmann acquired through creative methods.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>As he gradually snapped up the right recordings, an assistant editor named Jim Greco spent two years meticulously matching the sound to the video. And it began to work. Lurhmann was blown away by what he saw and heard, and knew there was a movie in it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat would Elvis do?,\u201d he remembered thinking. \u201cCould it go on IMAX?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The last piece of the \u201cEPiC\u201d puzzle was an unearthed Nagra-tape interview in a box the director found of Elvis intimately ruminating on his life for almost an hour.<\/p>\n<p>Screw the scholars and talking heads, Luhrmann decided.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are always people telling you about Elvis,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I thought, \u2018The hell with that. Let\u2019s just have Elvis tell his story.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><figcaption>At the world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, excited women got up and danced.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The mix of Elvis singing and dancing in his prime, rehearsing and speaking candidly about himself combines into an eye-opening and exhilarating movie experience that\u2019s arrived on both IMAX and regular screens.<\/p>\n<p>At the premiere, excited women got up and danced.<\/p>\n<p>The project taught Luhrmann even more about his should\u2019ve-been pal. Seeing Elvis revealingly away from the spotlight, especially during chummy backstage glimpses, the director was surprised by how smart and funny his subject was. \u201cGoofy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><figcaption>Luhrmann was struck by Elvis\u2019 sense of humor behind the scenes as well as his peerless musicianship.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>And listening to the rare recordings of Elvis singing, he also could not believe the extent to which the man was truly the consummate artist.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is never out of tune,\u201d Luhrmann said incredulously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve worked with some of the greatest iconic musical people in the world, and they always sort of slightly hit a bang note. He\u2019s never out of tune.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baz Luhrmann remembers exactly where he was on August 16, 1977 \u2014 the day the King of Rock and Roll left the building. \u201cThis kid gets on a bus and hears Elvis Presley died,\u201d Luhrmann, 63, told The Post of his 14-year-old self back in Australia. Rattled by the tragic news, the teenager then had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2305155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[346263,25615,21741,21912],"class_list":["post-2305154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-baz-luhrmann","tag-elvis-presley","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/I-was-meant-to-meet-him-and-become-his-friend.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2305154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2305156,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2305154\/revisions\/2305156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2305155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2305154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2305154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2305154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}