For his audition tape, Austin Butler originally recorded himself singing "Love Me Tender." When he watched it, he felt like it was an Elvis impersonation, and refused to submit it. A few days later, he had a nightmare that his deceased mother was dying again. Overwhelmed with grief and with the Elvis audition still on his mind, he decided to pour his emotion into music. Thinking of the lyrics to "Unchained Melody," he remembered, "I always take it for granted that that's to a romantic partner, [but] what if I sing that to my mom?" He sat down at the piano in his bathrobe and filmed it. "And that way of channeling those emotions just felt true," the actor said. The video immediately caught director Baz Luhrmann's attention, as he was both confused and intrigued. Luhrmann stated, "Was it an audition? Or was he having a breakdown?" The director expressed that the audition felt like a spycam. Luhrmann asked to meet with Butler and eventually gave him the part.
The basic premise of Elvis: The Comeback Special (1968) as seen in the film is basically true. Elvis Presley was appalled that Tom Parker had agreed with a sponsor and NBC TV to do an hour-long special featuring Elvis, in a terrible sweater, performing cheesy skits and Christmas songs. He plotted with director Steve Binder and producer Bob Finkel to do a special showcasing his career. Rehearsals started in June 1968, and filming started later that month. Elvis, Binder, and Finkel did as much as they could to keep Parker out of the studio during taping. Four hours of footage was edited down to 50 minutes. The show, which aired December 3, 1968, was the most watched TV show that week in the US. A soundtrack album of songs specially recorded or re-recorded for the show reached #8 on the Billboard Album Charts, and got gold certification. The experience gave Elvis a new enthusiasm for resurrecting his live singing career, which he did in 1969, once he fulfilled the rest of his MGM movie contract.
Even though his hair was dyed dark brown, and he wore dark brown or jet black wigs in some scenes, Austin Butler is a natural blonde. Elvis Presley, who was known to have dark brown or jet black hair, was also a natural blonde.
RCA purchased Elvis Presley's contract from Sam Phillips and Sun Studio for $35,000, about $400,000 in 2024 dollars. At the time, it was the largest amount ever paid by a record label for a contract. Elvis, Phillips, and Sun had been constantly on the brink financially because Phillips couldn't cut records at the cost and pace of a larger record company. The $35,000 kept Sun in business for years, and helped Phillips launch other notable Sun stars like Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Some radio stations refused to play Sun artists, so Phillips bought a radio station. Phillips later became a principal investor in the Holiday Inn hotel chain. Sun Studio remains open in Memphis, Tennessee, as a national landmark.
"Dr. Nick" was based on Elvis Presley's main physician, George C. Nichopoulos, who was accused but then exonerated of criminal liability for Presley's death. He prescribed Elvis over 10,000 doses of sedatives, amphetamines, and narcotics in the last eight months of his life.
Kurt Russell: in the montage of Elvis Presley movie titles and clips, during the scene from Blondes, brunes et rousses (1963) in which a kid (Russell) kicks Mike Edwards (Presley) in the shin. This was Kurt Russell's first appearance in film and the first of several connections to Presley in his career. Sixteen years later, Russell was the lead in Le Roman d'Elvis (1979). Ten years later, in Tango & Cash (1989), his file says his birthday is August 16, which is the day Elvis died in 1977. Five years later, Russell lent his voice to the actor playing a young Elvis Presley in Forrest Gump (1994). Seven years after that, Russell played an ex-con who robs a casino during an Elvis Impersonator Convention in Destination: Graceland (2001). In Les chroniques de Noël (2018), the song that Santa sings in the jail scene is one of Elvis' most popular Christmas songs, "Santa Claus is Back in Town" (1957), sung in the style of a Christmas version of the title number from Le Rock du bagne (1957).