ORION: The Man Who Would Be King tells the story of Jimmy Ellis, an unknown singer who is thrust into the spotlight from obscurity after Sun Records, launched in 1979, hatched an outlandish scheme to transform him into Orion, a masked singer that could just be Elvis back from the grave. You can watch a trailer for the film above.
Jimmy - acting as the masked protagonist Orion - gains the kind of lifestyle he had always longed for but in the end it isn’t quite enough. The film looks at the shadier parts of the music industry, exposing manipulative goings on as well as questioning what we mean by identity. It is Finlay’s sixth feature documentary following on from Sound It Out, the acclaimed 2011 documentary on a Teesside independent record store struggling to survive in an increasingly impoverished area. To put the film together, the team undertook extensive research discovering archival materials and conducting interviews with Orion, inner circle of friends, family, band members and managers in order to truly do justice to this captivating story. You can find out more information about the film here. It will be released in cinemas from September 25 and you can find screening information here.
