THIS IS ELVIS / LOST PERFORMANCES ‘REDUX’

UPDATED ARTICLE

With the recent release of Baz Luhrmann concert film ‘EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert’ fans have finally got to see a glimpse of unreleased footage from Elvis’ previous concert films ‘Elvis: That’s The Way It Is’ and ‘Elvis On Tour’, and surprisingly some additional footage from Elvis’ 1957 concert in Hawaii. The Hawaii concert footage came from the Graceland archives.

Prior to the Baz ‘Elvis’ movie in 2022 the previous Warner Brothers theatrical release regarding Elvis was the 1981 documentary ‘This Is Elvis’.  This film combined original Elvis archival footage with actor reenactments and voice over narration by singer Ral Donner, imitating Elvis speaking voice. For that time period, four years after Elvis death, the amount of archival footage in the movie was impressive spanning Elvis early career on television, movies and concert performances.

Based on the now available footage and audio of Elvis speaking about his career, this would be an opportune time to give a broader audience a fresh look of Elvis with a redux of the documentary ‘This Is Elvis’. Technology advances in film and artificial intelligence would create a fresh look of Elvis. An opportunity to showcase Elvis in the early days with first appearances on ‘Stage Show’, ‘Milton Berle Show’, ‘Ed Sullivan Show’ through his career to the new unreleased footage of the 70’s. The film would still document Elvis career in the army and movies as the original but without actors but perhaps even an ‘AI’ Elvis if the likeness was reasonable. The most important factor is the audience sees as much of the original Elvis as possible and utilize Elvis interview audio which they did not use in the original.  Imagine a redux release called ‘This Is Elvis’: 50th Anniversary Special Edition it could be another theatrical blockbuster for Elvis.

With all the “unseen” concert footage available, obviously it can’t all be placed in a single “documentary” but in 1992 Warner Bros released Elvis: The Lost Performances on direct to home VHS tape format. The material included footage from both ‘That’s The Way It Is’ and ‘Elvis On Tour’ as well as rehearsals from the MGM studio lot from July 29, 1970. Much of the footage was not official release on another format such as DVD or Blu Ray. This is how I would package it.

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To me this content needs to remain in its original form as much as possible, and ideally in multiple releases for each previously released concert documentary. Content should be released separately as ‘The Lost Performances: That’s The Way It Is’ and ‘The Lost Performances: Elvis On Tour’.  There are many options today on how the can be released with multiple streaming services but ultimately a physical release direct to customers is what the fans have been waiting for.

A key element is the editing of this content needs to stay original to the artist with original footage and audio content with no breaks into other footage. Simply fans would be seeing Elvis as those in the audience during those actual performances.

Depending on the quantity of content, each Lost Performances release could have multiple volumes and utilize the premise of the ‘Follow That Dream’ label that this is more for the dedicated die hard fan. Footage would be added into the ‘This Is Elvis’ redux movie enough to get the new fans interested to investigate additional content further. The best way to do this would be where old and new fans congregate, Elvis Week!

With the upcoming 50th anniversary in 2027 the “sound advice” suggestion would be a theatrical release of a new ‘This Is Elvis: 50th Anniversary” movie prior to Elvis Week. Then during Elvis week create a concert and presentations based on the “Lost Performances” upcoming series of releases.  This would be done using Elvis imagery, multi-screens footage and lighting in a concert type environment.  

Then with the excitement of the new concert material being viewed in Memphis, the first volumes of ‘The Lost Performances’ releases would be available during Elvis Week 2027. Along with the unprecedented release of this footage it would bring Elvis Week to the next level.  The fans, the new footage and a guaranteed excitement that hasn’t been felt at Elvis Week since the Elvis In Concert ‘97 at the Mid South Coliseum!

Are you looking forward to seeing new Elvis material and let us know what you think about our ‘sound advice’.