Michael Shannon’s Elvis Visits Kevin Spacey’s Nixon in ‘Elvis & Nixon’ Trailer

It sounds too absurd to be true: the King of Rock and Roll showing up at the White House asking President Nixon for his own federal agent badge. This is the stuff of fan-fiction or a goofy SNL sketch, right? Nope, the proof is in the photograph. On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue requesting a meeting with President Richard Nixon. We've seen the photo of the two posing together in the Oval Office, but what exactly happened in that meeting? The latest from Amazon Studios brings that story to the big screen in Elvis & Nixon, and now we have our very first look.

Meet Michael Shannon's very Elvis Elvis in the first trailer. The King shows up with a letter for Nixon, played by Kevin Spacey, requesting a federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs badge. With a martial arts moves and kicks, Shannon's Elvis says "I could infiltrate the communists, and then I'd bust 'em all." Hm, okay. So did Elvis just want to have a cool official badge to show off? According to his former wife, Priscilla Presley, the gun-loving Elvis mostly wanted the badge so he could travel freely with firearms and drugs. "The narc badge represented some kind of ultimate power to him," she wrote in her memoir. Not a bad idea.

We don't get a ton of Spacey's Nixon in the trailer, but a brief enough look at the craziness the ensued that day. The trailer amps up playful vibe of the film, which looks to be in the same hokey vein as Bleeker Street's other recent historical film Trumbo. Hopefully Elvis & Nixon doesn't get drudged in the same mawkishness of the disappointing Bryan Cranston film. If anything, I wouldn't mind watching Spacey back in the Oval Office and Shannon goofing around as the most famous rocker in history. Elvis & Nixon opens in theaters only in April.