Elvis Presley's could-have-been film roles

Willy Wonka?  lol...what a disaster that would’ve been.

Rio Bravo and Bye Bye Birdie would’ve worked, I think.

I thought I had read somewhere that he was offered Warren Oates role in In the Heat of the Night. Could be wrong.

A lot of them could have worked. I think Elvis could act but he never had a real role other than Flaming Star and Charro!. Co-incidentally, the two movies where he did almost no singing. The Defiant Ones is a role I really think he could have nailed. But he was force into all those silly roles. Some of it was Colonel Tom Parker. Parker was afraid that if Presley got to be a huge movie star, he would lose his absolute control over the King. Also, his movie formula did make money. The movies, even the stinkers, did well at the box office and the soundtracks sold very well. There was the legitimate concern that if Elvis made a legitimate movie, like The Defiant Ones, and it bombed, it would wreck his career, both on screen and in music.

When Robert Mitchum was producing the now cult classic "Thunder Road" (1958) for himself to star in, he wanted Elvis to play his younger brother. Col. Parker didn't turn him down outright but demanded a fee that was larger than the entire film's budget. Mitchum's own son James got the part and came with a much more reasonable price tag.

James Mitchum, almost a clone of his father.

It was interesting to see his change as an actor from his almost embarrassing amateur awkwardness in Love me Tender to his comfort in front of the camera playing versions of "himself" in the musicals.

One of his best performances, imo, was in King Creole where he showed the beginning of "what might have been" if only the colonel .....

For the sake of this discussion let’s assume that sometime during Elvis’ hitch in the army, col parker fell off a boat going to Catalina and drowned of his own weight. Now think of Elvis coming back and needing to restart his music career, find a new management team and plot his entry into films. What would he choose?

Rio Bravo would have been a perfect part for him. He would have had the security of a secondary part he could play, surrounded by pros who would give strong performances and maybe some mentoring and camaraderie. One thing that strikes me about Elvis is how completely isolated he was . An actor like Wayne, good at building his team, and working with family and friends, and Dean Martin, at the top of night club work and learning to move into films, also good at working with a team while maintaining his own space, Elvis would have been with two men who could have helped him a lot.

Conrad Birdie would have been a terrible mistake. As it was, it was an homage to Elvis. If Elvis played it , he was the joke. Reminds me of Boris Karloff playing Jonathon in Arsonic and Old Lace , although in that case it worked either way.

I am a little intrigued by the idea of of Elvis as Willy Wonka.

The other issue with BIRDIE is he would have been supporting dick van dyke.... it may be the title role but it wasn’t the lead

joe buck is an interesting thought but suspect he was too lardy by that point

When I saw Walking Tall in the theater I felt that Joe Don Baker bore a resemblance to Elvis, and I wondered how the film would have done with Elvis in the lead. Maybe well, maybe not. Elvis was such a superstar it might have literally horrified his fans to see him getting shot up like that. Also, while I see some acting talent in Mr. Presley, I can only wonder how credible he would have been in such a dramatic role. The film might have bombed, or played as a campfest. Seriously, the guy had never done anything like that movie, nor even a sort of precursor. He was a master at what he did, and an attempt at what many might have seen as a "makeover" might have hurt him. It's not like a middle-aged crooner, Dick Powell, walking away from an already somewhat faded stardom to enter a whole new career phase. Nor did, I suspect, Elvis himself want to change his image like that. He really loved singing, enjoyed what he did, and I doubt he would have cared to "move on". He was already an icon; and besides he was too out of shape for an "action career".

Rio Bravo would had been a cinch for him. Maybe even replacing Tony Curtis in The Defiant Ones. The rest would at least had been hilariously bad miscasting.