• Director Baz Luhrmann has said that his four-hour film ‘Elvis’ had to be trimmed down.
• Clues showing Elvis Presley meeting with Richard Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, were included in the film’s 240-minute edit.

As per Baz Luhrmann, “…I have a four-hour version. But you have to bring it down to 2 hours 30… I would have liked to lean into some of the other things… there’s lots of stuff that I shot like the relationship with the band, I had to pare down – and it’s so interesting how the Colonel gets rid of them.”

Elvis’ connection with Dixie, his first love, was also shown in the film’s lengthy edit. Elvis was also ‘trapped in a trap’ once throughout his life, according to the shortened version.

Read more: Elvis’ Cannes premiere: Tom Hanks ensures camera stays on Austin Butler

A director of ‘The Great Gatsby’ stated, “… once he’s caught in a trap, and he’s discombobulated and doesn’t understand… someone who’s got such a hole in his heart like Elvis constantly looking and searching for love and finding it on stage but nowhere else.”

The cut sections, according to Luhrmann, included Elvis performing “wackadoo things.” However, he recognised that he couldn’t ‘have everything in’ when shooting a film.

The director stated, “What happens is he starts doing wackadoo things – like going down to see Nixon. I had it in there for a while but there just comes a point where you can’t have everything in, so I just tried to track the spirit of the character.”

With a running duration of around 159 minutes, several critics believe Luhrmann’s “Elvis” theatrical version was a little too long. They chastised Elvis for not thoroughly exploring his personal life until he was ensnared in a trap.

Read more: Tom Hanks, Baz Luhrmann discuss latter’s role as Colonel Parker in ‘Elvis’

‘Elvis’ is a fizzy, dizzying, impishly charged, compulsively fascinating 2-hour-and-39-minute fever dream — a spangly pinwheel of a picture that changes the Elvis narrative we all carry around in our thoughts into a lavishly constructed biopic-as-pop-opera, according to film reviewer Owen Gleiberman.

For the uninitiated, ‘Elvis’ is a biographical musical drama about the iconic musician Elvis Presley in the 1950s that will be released in theatres on June 24, 2018. Elvis Presley is played by Austin Butler in the film. ‘Elvis’ features an ensemble cast that includes Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge, Dacre Montgomery, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, to mention a few.