Much like The King of Rock and Rock himself, director Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis is still making noise well past its prime. The second-biggest music biopic of all time (behind Bohemian Rhapsody) passed the $250 million mark at the global box office in its seventh week of release, with a VOD debut looming.

Elvis added $4.5 million this weekend from 70 markets, pushing its overseas gross to $114 million. Domestically, the film made $3.7 million this weekend, taking its total to $136 million. Elvis’ success marks a much-needed win for adult-skewing dramas in the pandemic era, after infamous flops such as Ridley Scott’s The Last Duel and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. All three films came with hefty budgets ranging from $85 million (Elvis) to $100 million each for The Last Duel and West Side Story. The sole outlier during this unfortunate phase was Scott’s other 2021 drama, House of Gucci, which made $156 million worldwide against a reported $75 million budget — thanks mostly to Lady Gaga’s buzzy performance and a true crime-friendly plot.

At nearly 160 minutes long and featuring some of Luhrmann’s most extravagantly idiosyncratic filmmaking, Elvis' success was hardly written in stone. While reviews have been largely favorable, criticism has been directed at Lurhmann’s decision to frame the story through the perspective of Presley’s controversial manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks). Virtually everybody, however, was in agreement about Austin Butler’s star-making central performance.

Priscilla + Elvis

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Elvis is also the second highest-grossing film of Luhrmann’s career, behind 2013’s The Great Gatsby. That film grossed $350 million worldwide at the peak of the 3D era, thanks mostly to Leonardo DiCaprio’s star-power. While Elvis will most likely not surpass The Great Gatsby’s worldwide haul, it’s already the biggest Warner Bros. title of the pandemic, having passed the domestic box office totals of two major blockbusters distributed by the studio — director Denis Villeneuve’s science-fiction epic Dune ($108 million), and Adam Wingard’s monster mashup Godzilla vs. Kong ($100 million). It should be noted that both those films debuted day-and-date on the HBO Max streaming service, and were released at a time when the public was more cautious about falling sick.

Elvis will be available for Premium Digital Ownership and for Video OnDemand rental on August 9, and will later be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-Ray, and DVD on September 13. You can watch our interview with Luhrmann here, and read the film’s official synopsis down below:

Elvis’s story is seen through the prism of his complicated relationship with his enigmatic manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Hanks). As told by Parker, the film delves into the complex dynamic between the two spanning over 20 years, from Presley’s rise to fame to his unprecedented stardom, against the backdrop of the evolving cultural landscape and loss of innocence in America. Central to that journey is one of the significant and influential people in Elvis’s life, Priscilla Presley (Olivia DeJonge).