Seems like you just can’t keep a good King down.
He may have died thirty years ago (August 16, 1977, to be precise), but Elvis Presley’s legend shows no signs of stopping – his records still sell by the truckload, thousands of visitors still clump around his home, Graceland, every year, and the sister of one Empire staffer still spends a small fortune on Presley merchandise, from spoons to the Elvis version of Monopoly...
You may think you know the Presley story inside out by now, what with various biopics and TV films about The King of Rock’n’Roll, including the original and best – John Carpenter’s Elvis, starring the incomparable Kurt Russell – but a deal has just been closed to bring you an inside view on one of the most private parts of Presley’s life: his time in the US Army.
Cinema League, a new production company, has just bought the film and TV rights to a book entitled, Sergeant Presley: The Untold Story of Elvis' Missing Years, co-written by one Rex Mansfield, a soldier who served alongside Elvis during his much-publicised tour of duty in the Army, from 1958 to 1960.
Aha! But the intrigue doesn’t stop there, fact fans. This isn’t just going to be Full Metal Presley, for the book is also co-written by Mansfield’s wife, Elizabeth, who was once – shock! Horror! – Presley’s lady. So, as well as telling all about Presley’s time serving Uncle Sam, from his basic training to his time spent in Germany (which inspired the Presley flick, G.I. Blues), where he met a (very) young Priscilla Beaulieu (one day to become Mrs. Presley, and of course comedic foil to Leslie Nielsen in three Naked Gun flicks) for the first time, the movie will purport to tell all about the affair between Presley and Elizabeth, and how the heroic, manly Rex Mansfield drew her slowly away from the allure of the King himself.
Of course, that means that the movie’s viewpoint may not be entirely unbiased or, indeed, flattering towards Elvis. After all, it could, in fact, be subtitled How I Shagged Elvis’ Bird, Ha Ha Ha, but we must trust that the events recorded within won’t be entirely one-sided.
It’s very early stages yet for Sergeant Presley – if that is to be the name – and in fact, it may wind up as a TV series. But Cinema League is a production company formed with the express intention of making films in the $5-20 million league, so expect to see it first on the big screen. Currently, Cinema League’s Milo Vrana, a sports agent turned screenwriter, is working on adapting the book (which, we have to add, is also co-written by Marshall and Zoe Terrill).
So far, there’s no word of a director and, perhaps more pertinently, a star, someone to fill Elvis’ big shoes and follow in the footsteps of Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer (uncredited in Tony Scott’s True Romance) and, bizarrely, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, the Irish actor having played Presley in 2005’s epic TV movie, Elvis.
Given the movie’s probable budget, it’s unlikely that Sergeant Presley will bag an A-lister, but you can bet on the search for a King – let’s not forget, a young, lithe, charismatic and handsome Presley – generating more than a few column inches. Needless to say, we’ll keep you updated. Thanguverymuch!