Baz Luhrmann has described his 'Elvis' biopic as a "superhero film".

The 59-year-old director has helmed the upcoming movie that stars Austin Butler as the King of Rock and Roll and branded the late music icon as the "original superhero".

Speaking at the Warner Bros. CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, Baz explained: "You know, while I was looking at that little reel and I'm thinking it feels a bit like a superhero film.

"It is because I actually think Elvis is kind of the original superhero. And I mean that he comes from dirt, and in a few blinding moments, he rises so high, he finds his kryptonite, and also love. And then a beautiful, powerful tragedy ensues."

Luhrmann thinks that the film – which also features Tom Hanks and Olivia DeJonge - is more than a mere biopic and tells the story of America between the 1950s and 1970s.

The 'Great Gatsby' director explained: "I love biopics, but this is not really a biopic, right? It's really about, for me, America in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s.

"And if you want to talk about America in the 50s and 60s and the 70s at the centre of culture, for the good, the bad and the ugly, is a figure (like) Elvis Presley.

"What this movie is about is those three epochs – Elvis the rebel, Elvis the highest-paid actor in Hollywood, and Elvis the living legend, the icon trapped in that hotel not 10 minutes from here, by a man called Colonel Tom Parker."

Baz continued: "But Elvis is at the centre of it. And, you know, I really wanted to also explore this tension between these two great American things, I absolutely love them.

"And it's what defines I think the new of America you know, the fact that it can bring all these different elements together and create something new that's the artistic gesture, the invention, the inventiveness."