Sillerman has a deal unveiled last week with "Idol" creator Simon Fuller that sees him remain a consultant on 19's hit shows "Idol" and "So You Think You Can Dance" while he is also launching a new entertainment company. The deal will remove some development and production costs from CKX's cost base.
The Fuller deal pretty much amounts to a first-look deal at TV projects Fuller will develop, Sillerman said.
But it will allow Fuller to also develop film projects. Sillerman has opposed a move into films. He emphasized Tuesday that film is "not on the mission statement of CKX."
According to a recent regulatory filing, Fuller is considering a movie about the life and times of Elvis Presley. CKX holds the rights to Presley.
Unless it is a straight up documentary, along the lines of "This Is Elvis" it just won't work (in my opinion). They have tried casting Don Johnson and Kurt Russell and Jonathan Ryes-Myers and others in the role, and no one has anything close to approaching Elvis' charisma. It just doesn't work (I did like Kurt Russell in the role, but it was still hard to suspend disbelief). Nicholas Cage did an interesting and weird version of Elvis in "Wild At Heart", which was a little entertaining at least. You can do "Walk the Line" and have somebody play Johnny Cash, you can do "Great Balls of Fire" and have somebody play Jerry Lee Lewis, but No one can play Elvis. There was just something far too unique about him and everyone who tries to play him seems like a cartoon.
Simon Fuller is a creative genius with a brilliant mind. Under Sillerman and now Fuller, Elvis will be able to blossom in a whole new way under these the leadership of these two. Fans both young and old haven't seen anyting like what the future has instore for the legacy of Elvis Presley. From Viva ELVIS and theatrical biopics to the Graceland expansion to other Elvis-extravagant projects still to come! Fuller could take the approach of looking at someone like Shawn Klush to portray Elvis. He may not be an actor but he sure "acts" like Elvis to a T!
'Summer Fuller is a crwative genius....Shaun Klush to play Elvis' Thats's the biggest contradiction I've ever heard. Laughing my head off at the thought!
KingKreole: I agree with you 100%.
MarkJ, I fully agree with your comments. Bob Sillerman and Simon Fuller are the best people to take the Elvis Legacy forward into the 21st Century. The Simon Fuller movie, I suspect, will be similar to the Johnny Cash film 'Walk The Line'.
I too, completely agree with KingKreole. No one, and I mean NO ONE, can play Elvis. No look alikes...please. Don't think I can handle another one!
Michael St.Gerard always did Elvis justice. He'd be my pick. He had the market cornered for a while. Last i heard he was giving sermons at a church in New York. It be nice to see him as Elvis again. Always liked Kurt Russell also but he can't quite pull off a younger Elvis anymore. He was the only actor to portray him that actually knew him. No wonder he has him down so good.
ElvisPresleyJones, what a load of garbage. Firstly Kurt Russell's performancce as Elvis was dire. Secondly, trying to substantiate what you claim as a good performance as Russell 'actually knew him' is ridiculous - he had a tiny non-credited role in It Happened At The World's Fair when he was 12 years old! Besides, Elvis in 1963 was hardly the focus of Elvis The Movie!!
I have to agree with KingKreole no one has ever been able to capture any part of Elvis in my opinion. And all impersonators do look like clowns and are a discrace.
Elvis' music can only go so far before eventually it would fade into a historic stage like Sinatra, Nelson, Berry, etc. But with a double-team power in Sillerman and Fuller operating the future of Elvis, he can now maintain a future beyond his original fanbase that won't be around too much longer and is aging like he would have. Sillerman and Fuller. like them or not, are the drivers of how far Elvis can go over the next 20 years. Don't hate them for what they're doing, congratulate them for keeping his memory alive for generations to come! Some of you complain that Elvis doesn't get respect. Well, under them he finally will. :)
KingKreole is absolutely right! The whole concept seems doomed to fail, even if they could find somebody convincing enough to portray Elvis. The reason I say this is because the Elvis myth has outgrown the Elvis reality. So many contradictory books have been written by "his closest" friends. They can't agree on "what happened." If you think about it, there's more money to be had in the myth. Ignore the facts and everyone can believe what they want and still enjoy the music. Tell his story through a circus acrobat act on a Las Vegas stage. That's a whole lot sweeter than the story of a musical genius dead at age 42 from self destruction.
If they make a movie like "Great Balls Of Fire", concentrating on Elvis in the 50's and ending it with him going into the army, saying something like "he went on to be the king of r&R, selling more than a billion records world wide" or some fancy words like that, it would do great I think. But then they need a really good actor playing Elvis (which is hard to find), twist and turn the facts like they did with Great Balls of Fire making it commercial and entertaining, and add great ORIGINAL Elvis-music to it. Then it would do great. But they will need famous and well-known actors and do good publicity. Elvis in the 50's usually always sell well, as long as it's a good product.
Elvis movies with actors make me cringe. Fuller needs to work on an anthology - an extended version of 'This is Elvis'. I made my own version years ago and my friends all wanted copies, I was told it was way better than any Tv documentary! Thats the route they need to go - the real deal, not actors.
I agree actors doing Elvis is a bad idea. They never do the King justice & look like Elvis impersonators. A good documentary would play better.
In case you guys forgot there's never been an actual theatrical biopic about Elvis to date. This will be the first. Plus in the past the estate never had the financing to put behind a well written and directed movie like what Fuller is planning. Therefor could never pay a very good or popular actor to portray Elvis. It won't be cheap or thrown together either. You can count on that. There's way too much for SIllerman and Fuller to lose by doing that. It will be well thought out before it ever goes into production.
When do you think they will ever get it? THERE is only one ELVIS