Courtesy of Shore Fire Media
When director Baz Luhrmann was making his 2022 biopic “Elvis,” he stumbled onto something bigger than a single film. Deep inside the Warner Bros. vaults were long-forgotten negatives and reels of footage from the documentary “Elvis: That’s the Way It Is” (shot during Presley’s 1970 Las Vegas residency) and “Elvis on Tour” (captured across his 1972 U.S. run), along with never-before-seen 8mm film and unheard audio of Elvis talking about his own life. What began as an archival curiosity and a search for content to incorporate into the initial film slowly evolved into a multi-year restoration project, and now it has established itself as a new kind of concert film and companion soundtrack.
Luhrmann, inspired greatly by Elvis’ creative vision, stated, “We were constantly asking ourselves, what would Elvis do if he were around? How might he experiment, where might he go? He was always a musical searcher, looking for different flavors and sounds.”
Building off the prior success of the biopic, “EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert,” which hits theaters with a one-week IMAX run on February 20 before expanding globally on February 27 via NEON and Universal Pictures International, was born.
The same day as the IMAX premiere, Legacy Recordings, RCA Records, and Sony Music will release the film’s 27-track soundtrack. This collection stitches together newly restored live performances with remixes and medleys built from the new discovery of Elvis recordings.
Luhrmann and his team worked with Park Road Post Production, Peter Jackson’s restoration house, and Academy Award nominee Jonathan Redmond, among others, to painstakingly clean up and reconstruct the footage and audio. The result, according to Luhrmann, isn’t just a sharper version of the Elvis people already know, but a more intimate one: a performer “totally at ease on stage,” able to feel and return the love of the crowd, and to communicate with a warmth and humor that cuts through the myth passed down by generations of Elvis fans.
That sense of rediscovery extends to the soundtrack itself. Rather than simply present a greatest-hits live album, Luhrmann and GRAMMY-nominated producer Jamieson Shaw have treated Presley’s catalog as raw material, which they artistically view as something to be reimagined as much as preserved.
Now available to stream, “Wearin’ That Night Life Look” blends pieces of “Wearin’ That Loved On Look,” “Night Life,” “I, John,” and “Let Yourself Go” into what Shaw calls “an entirely new track from Elvis DNA.” It asserts itself as a remix built on nostalgia rather than novelty.
The soundtrack, produced by Luhrmann, arrives digitally and on CD on February 20, with a 2-LP vinyl edition following on April 24. Vinyl collectors and Elvis fans alike will experience the opportunity to grow their collection with a Graceland exclusive Red Marble pressing and an Amazon exclusive translucent orange and yellow variant.
“EPiC” already debuted at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where it reportedly earned a standing ovation and dancing in the aisles. It’s Luhrmann’s second major Elvis project after “Elvis” (2022), which earned eight Academy Award® nominations, won multiple BAFTA’s® and Golden Globes®, and grossed nearly $300 million worldwide. But where that film was a maximalist biopic, “EPiC” mimics the intimacy of experiencing Elvis live. It lets Presley speak, sing, and joke for himself, using the best technology available to bridge five decades of distance.
What emerges, in both the film and the album, is not just the icon in his jumpsuit, but a performer who still feels startlingly present and remains beloved by many. “EPiC” makes the case that the most radical thing you can do is to take another listen and envelop yourself inself in Elvis’ original sound reimagined by Luhrmann’s creative genius.
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