Baz Luhrmann’s 'Elvis' trailer released: Austin Butler transforms into Elvis Presley

The much-awaited trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley biopic is here. Starring Tom Hanks and Austin Butler, Elvis looks set to be a rock 'n' roll rollercoaster of emotions. Butler stars as the famous singer with Hanks as Col Tom Parker, Presley's manager of more than 20 years.

Click though the gallery above to see the 'Elvis' actors and the people they are portraying in the film. Luhrmann, who has directed and co-written the film, is known for his musical masterpieces. The Australian director, writer, and producer is behind Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby.

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The trailer is set to a haunting rendition of Suspicious Minds, and shows parts of Presley's early life in rural Mississippi, with Chaydon Jay playing him as a teen. We see him getting his early musical start in a church choir, before he grows into "a young singer from Memphis, Tennessee".

Butler then takes over the character as an adult, taking the audience from Presley's early performances where he won over legions of female fans to his later years. As Unchained Melody plays in the background, Presley laments: "I'm gonna be 40 soon and nobody's gonna remember me."

The singer eventually died aged 42 in 1977. The film is set to focus on the complicated relationship between Presley and Parker. "There are some who'd make me out to be the villain of this here story," Hanks says at the beginning of the preview, setting the tone for his character.

It also features a number of real people from Presley's life, including Priscilla Presley (Olivia De Jonge), the singer's wife from 1967 until 1973; his father, Vernon Presley (Richard Roxburgh); and musicians BB King (Kelvin Harrison Jr) and Hank Snow (David Wenham).

When the film was first announced in 2019, Harry Styles was in the running to portray Presley, along with Ansel Elgort, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Miles Teller. Butler was confirmed for the role in July 2019.

Past Elvis Presley biopics
This is not the first time Presley has been portrayed in film. In 1979, Kurt Russell played The King in Elvis, with Pat Hingle taking on the role of Parker. Don Johnson filled his blue suede shoes for 1981's Elvis and the Beauty Queen.

Harvey Keitel played him in the 1988 film Finding Graceland, while Val Kilmer played an apparition of the singer in 1993s True Romance.

More recently, Irish actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers played the character in the 2005 miniseries Elvis, Ron Livingston took on the role for 2016 crime drama Shangri-La Suite and Michael Shannon portrayed him in 2016's Elvis & Nixon.

Meyers said he wanted to play Presley in the TV series because he is a "phenomenon". "[He was] very, very talented, but he was also very contradictory, because he was very raw, very talented, white boy from the South, singing rhythm and blues in the 1950s, getting all the girls hot under the collar," Meyers told IGN. "But at the same time, he was a mama's boy, a great humanitarian, and a devout [Christian]. So, you know, he had that dichotomy. That's very interesting to play."