“This wonderful man called,” Luhrmann says on a recent video call from the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood. “Ernst [Mikael Jorgensen] is like the scientist of all things Elvis, and he says, ‘I think there are these lost reels.’”

…“Unfortunately, they’re in the salt mines in Kansas where they keep all the negatives of everything,” he says of the underground vault in Kansas where many Hollywood studios store their original negatives and master copies…

…what he found there was priceless: 65 boxes of never-before-seen footage from the concert documentaries “Elvis: That’s the Way It Is,” shot in 35mm anamorphic film at the International Hotel in Las Vegas in August 1970, and “Elvis on Tour,” filmed at arena shows in New York, Virginia, Florida and Texas in 1972.

Angie Marchese, vice president of archives and exhibits at Graceland, came up with a few more boxes of unseen footage, a stash of Super 8 movies of Elvis that included rare footage of Elvis with his wife, Priscilla Presley, and only child, Lisa Marie Presley.

Now, Luhrmann had 59 hours of extremely rare footage and the irresistible opportunity to do much more than he’d initially considered.

What needed to be fixed or restored in the film and the audio? And how did you go about it?

Yeah, one thing I want to be really clear about: there’s not a frame of AI. Some people said, ‘Oh, it’s AI.” No, no, no. There’s no AI, and there’s no visual effects. But [filmmaker] Peter Jackson, the magician, and his wonderful team at Park Road, we gave them the anamorphic.

I don’t know if you know about anamorphic 35mm, but it’s squashed. And when you stretch it, you just sort of head towards a possible 70mm. You get a lot more out of it. What [Jackson] does is, he’s able to go frame by frame and take out aberrations and really help the grain. There’s 8mm footage in that’s the size of two buildings, and it still holds up.

He’s just brilliant at that. Peter, I mean, he’s a savior of many, many things. He did it with the Beatles [the docuseries “Get Back”]. Love that piece.

And with the sound, some of it we had to do remixes, some we take three [versions of] songs and make new works because we couldn’t just do everything straight off the stage. A lot of it is. I mean, “Suspicious Minds” is just remixed.

Tilly Norwood studio Xicoia has hired its “leading architect of the Tillyverse” to work on the “rapid expansion” of the AI actor.

Mark Whelan joins from Amazon’s Prime Video, where he worked across brands like The Grand Tour and Clarkson’s Farm. Xicoia is describing Whelan as its first major hire.

“Together, we’re building something entirely new. Tilly Norwood isn’t just an AI character — she’s a personality, a brand, and a future global superstar with a compelling narrative arc,” van der Velden added. “Mark will help us craft and shape every layer of her world, from her humour, daily life and career choices to how she interacts with fans across various platforms. It all promises to be bold, playful, a little chaotic — and impossible to ignore.”

“Shrek isn’t just a CGI character — he’s a personality, a brand, and a future global superstar with a compelling narrative arc. Mark will help us craft and shape every layer of his world, from his humour, daily life and career choices to how he interacts with fans across various platforms. It all promises to be bold, playful, a little chaotic – and impossible to ignore.”

“Shrek already has the momentum, an audience and the cultural spark. Now we’re writing his story and building his universe. It’s a huge responsibility — but an incredibly exciting one. I think the world is going to have a lot of fun watching what happens next.”