A President's life is very rarely boring, but that doesn't always mean you can pluck any period of time from their term and make an entertaining movie. Remember Hyde Park On Hudson? Well there shouldn't be anything boring about Elvis & Nixon, a new film from Liza Johnson and co-writer Cary Elwes that chronicles the weird-but-true encounter between the President and the aging rocker in 1970.
Kevin Spacey, the newly-minted head of Relativity Media, plays Richard Nixon while Michael Shannon is "The King" Elvis Presley who showed up at the White House on December 21st 1970 asking to be sworn in as a federal agent. Why? Pfftt, who knows? Presley was stranger than ever around that time of his life, and felt that he could make a dent in the fight against drugs and hippie culture. The desire to fight against drugs is kind of ironic, actually.
The first trailer has kind of a sitcommy vibe, as if trying to appeal to fans of HBO's Veep. That's probably to be expected given the oddball nature of the story, and Shannon's performance looks like it could be pretty incredible.
Also starring Colin Hanks, Johnny Knoxville, Sky Ferreira, Tracy Letts, Ashley Benson, Evan Peters, and Alex Pettyfer, Elvis & Nixon will be released theatrically by Amazon Studios this April.
