Sofia Coppola opens up on 'Priscilla' not featuring Elvis Presley's songs and why it wasn't shot on film

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Sofia Coppola, the Oscar-winning director of 'Lost in Translation', has revealed why her new biopic 'Priscilla' does not feature any of Elvis Presley's songs but Dolly Patrons and why it was not shot on film.

The movie, which is based on Priscilla Presley’s memoir 'Elvis and Me', tells the story of her relationship with the King of Rock and Roll and is in theaters on January 1.  

Sofia Coppola says she faces budget constraints and gender bias

Coppola told BBC News that she has to work with “a tiny fraction” of the money that her male counterparts get.

Coppola said she faced budget restraints that forced her to shoot digitally and finish the movie in just 30 days. 

She said “I just see all these men getting hundreds of millions of dollars and then I’m fighting for a tiny fraction of that. I think it’s just left over from the way the culture of that business is. It’s frustrating but I’m always fighting to get it and I’m just happy to get to make my movies independently and find people that believe in them.”

Sofia Coppola embraces the challenge and the freedom of making things small

Despite the difficulties, Coppola said that she enjoyed the creative process of making a small movie without the interference of studio executives. 

She said, “There’s a challenge and a freedom in making things small because if you have a big budget, you have a lot of input from studio executives, and I would never be able to make a movie like that."

“So I have that freedom. And then you have to be really crafty and it was really hard but I had the best team… we were able to re-use sets and I don’t know how we made so many costumes! It was all hands on deck and just having really creative department heads," she added.

She also admitted that she would have preferred to shoot on film, but she had to compromise because of the time pressure and financial constraints.  

“I would have liked to shoot on film, but we shot digitally because we had to move so fast," she told the station. 

Sofia Coppola chose Dolly Parton over Elvis Presley for the soundtrack

Priscilla Presley is credited as an executive producer of the biopic. However, another challenge that Coppola faced was the rights issues for using Elvis' songs in the movie.

She said that she originally wanted to have three Elvis songs, but she knew that it might not be possible. “I originally wanted to have three Elvis songs, but I always knew that we might not be able to get them. I wanted it to really be focused on her [Priscilla’s] story… and to me it is really important to have Dolly Parton at the end, to have a woman’s voice at the end," she added.

The movie ends with Parton’s song, 'I Will Always Love You', which was famously rejected by Elvis after his manager demanded the publishing rights from Parton.

Parton also said Priscilla told her that Elvis sang the song to her as they were on the way out of court following their divorce proceedings in 1973.