Elvis, played by Austin Butler, lives through a stratospheric rise to a level of fame yet unreached in the country for his music and his persona. Set against the backdrop of segregation in America there is a bridge between Elvis and black American music, he has no one to guide him but his manipulative and exploitative manager Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks. Parker dies in poverty and obscurity while Elvis is known and loved throughout the world long after his death.
We start the remake with Tom Parker. Old, blind, and addicted to morphine, who is telling the story from his deathbed to an unseen doctor. Elvis is a young child, just like in the original with his exposure to music in a black church. This is in the pre-civil rights American south and we emphasize the struggle of black people. Elvis is now a young, attractive, and talented teenager, but a newsreel showing the disappearance of black people in his community adds a macabre, uncanny feeling. Elvis becomes the crossover star, musician, and sex symbol that we know, and has a productive partnership with his manager Tom Parker. Elvis doesn’t age, this is contrasted by a visibly aging Tom Parker who is criticizing and dismissing the civil rights movement as it gains traction. Elvis marries Priscilla, and at first it is going well until she unexpectedly enters Elvis’ dressing room before a show and sees that he is an actual demon who feeds on black artists to stay young and talented. She leaves him but Parker gets her to agree not to break the story. As the civil rights movement strengthens, at the same time Elvis is weakening. Aging slowly and getting fatter, his performances get worse until he dies on the toilet. Cut back to Parker on his deathbed. He reveals that he is the one who lured black artists and fed them to Elvis his whole career and only when it wasn’t possible anymore did he wither and die, and laments that Elvis could still be performing as an ageless star. It is revealed that the doctor he is confessing to is a black man. “I know.” The doctor says. “We know.” and leaves him to die alone.
It is a tale of how the transfusion of the limitless, irrepressible talent and inventiveness of deprived and disadvantaged communities into the soulless but more marketable ruling class has always been a feature of culture, and how their arrogance is such that they are even unaware those communities understand what is happening.
Matthew Cameron 
Elvis, played by Austin Butler, lives through a stratospheric rise to a level of fame yet unreached in the country for his music and his persona. Set against the backdrop of segregation in America there is a bridge between Elvis and black American music, he has no one to guide him but his manipulative and exploitative manager Tom Parker, played by Tom Hanks. Parker dies in poverty and obscurity while Elvis is known and loved throughout the world long after his death.
We start the remake with Tom Parker. Old, blind, and addicted to morphine, who is telling the story from his deathbed to an unseen doctor. Elvis is a young child, just like in the original with his exposure to music in a black church. This is in the pre-civil rights American south and we emphasize the struggle of black people. Elvis is now a young, attractive, and talented teenager, but a newsreel showing the disappearance of black people in his community adds a macabre, uncanny feeling. Elvis becomes the crossover star, musician, and sex symbol that we know, and has a productive partnership with his manager Tom Parker. Elvis doesn’t age, this is contrasted by a visibly aging Tom Parker who is criticizing and dismissing the civil rights movement as it gains traction. Elvis marries Priscilla, and at first it is going well until she unexpectedly enters Elvis’ dressing room before a show and sees that he is an actual demon who feeds on black artists to stay young and talented. She leaves him but Parker gets her to agree not to break the story. As the civil rights movement strengthens, at the same time Elvis is weakening. Aging slowly and getting fatter, his performances get worse until he dies on the toilet. Cut back to Parker on his deathbed. He reveals that he is the one who lured black artists and fed them to Elvis his whole career and only when it wasn’t possible anymore did he wither and die, and laments that Elvis could still be performing as an ageless star. It is revealed that the doctor he is confessing to is a black man. “I know.” The doctor says. “We know.” and leaves him to die alone.
It is a tale of how the transfusion of the limitless, irrepressible talent and inventiveness of deprived and disadvantaged communities into the soulless but more marketable ruling class has always been a feature of culture, and how their arrogance is such that they are even unaware those communities understand what is happening.
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