Elvis Insider: Lisa Marie Presley didnt like the Priscilla script

10/30/2023

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Baz Lurmann’s Elvis was made in cooperation with the Elvis Presley Estate, and Lisa Marie, Priscilla, and Riley Keough all had good things to say about it, which are excerpted on the movie’s Wikipedia page. But Sofia Coppola’s movie Priscilla was made without the estate. They refused to license any of Elvis’ songs to the project. Sofia and Priscilla worked closely in developing the movie, which in my view is all that matters, since it’s Priscilla’s story. But the Elvis Presley estate is not happy with the movie and has been sending “sources” to the media to trash talk it. Now an Estate “insider” is telling Page Six that Lisa Marie Presley (who died in January of this year) didn’t like the script. This is also confirmed by a “production source” who worked on the movie. I think the bigger story here is that the Estate is shook about the way that Sofia’s movie presents the relationship Elvis had with Priscilla.

Sources tell Page Six that it is not being warmly received by Presley insiders, and that before her sudden death in January, there was tension between Lisa Marie Presley and Coppola over its portrayal of her father.

Even the casting is causing unhappiness among the Presley camp: Spaen, at 5’1″ is towered over by Elorrdi, at 6’5″ a full 5 inches taller than the real Elvis.

The intent was surely to make them feel even more different than they were,” says an Elvis estate source: “Even down to the casting, you have this huge man and this tiny girl. It feels like somebody wanted to grossly misrepresent Elvis and Priscilla and their relationship.”

And the fact that the movie focuses on Priscilla being 14 when she met Elvis is also a source of discontent, with a source saying, “Elvis did nothing not within the nature of what Priscilla’s parents were ok with.”

Sources tell us Lisa Marie was not thrilled with the script for “Priscilla” — and thought that her mother was being manipulated by the film’s makers.

“Lisa was not happy with the movie, it was more worrying about the script, its quality and that Priscilla seems to have been taken advantage of,” said the Elvis source, who has seen the movie and deemed it “horrible.”

Another insider who knew Lisa added: “Lisa wasn’t a fan, she didn’t like the script.”

Production sources acknowledged that Lisa Marie had been unhappy before seeing the script.

[From Page Six]

Another interesting tidbit in this article: they claim that Priscilla initially kept her involvement in Sofia Coppola’s movie a secret from her daughter, and Lisa Marie asked her not to sign on as a producer. I understand why Lisa Marie wanted to protect her dad. But I also think Priscilla has the right to tell her story. The Estate talks about Sofia’s movie like it’s some salacious tell-all. But anyone who’s familiar with Sofia’s work knows that’s not how she operates. Because some of her films are light on dialogue (like Marie Antoinette) I can see why Lisa Marie might have worried from the script alone. Apparently Priscilla has fewer speaking lines than Elvis. But Sofia’s movies also use imagery and atmosphere to make their points. And the fact that Priscilla spends so much of the movie not saying anything probably reflects the imbalance of power between them, and the way that Elvis leaned on her emotionally. She was supposed to listen to him, not to be listened to.

Check out the grammatical knots in how the Estate denies Elvis grooming Priscilla: “Elvis did nothing not within the nature of what Priscilla’s parents were ok with.” That is nonsensical. Denials like that just hum with the truth they’re trying to push away. Even if Priscilla’s parents were “ok” with Elvis dating her when she was 14 and he was 24…grooming is grooming is grooming.

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