Danilo’s original signing hits over 10million licensed calendar sales as epic biopic is released
As the face that launched a thousand calendars, Elvis is back in the limelight and Danilo Promotions has revealed it was the first company to launch any licensed merchandise following The King’s untimely death.
Thanks to Baz Luhrmann’s just-released smash hit movie starring Austin Butler as the rock ’n’ roll legend and Tom Hanks as his long-time manager Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis Presley is making headlines once again – and has definitely not “left the building” as his iconic end-of-show announcement used to claim.
And Danilo has counted up to discover the company has now sold over 10million official licensed Elvis calendars, three million in the UK alone, since it began when company founder Laurence Prince realised the public wanted some way to remember the King Of Rock ’N’ Roll after his death on 16 August, 1977.
Starting his own legend of the licensing industry, Laurence flew to Los Angeles where he managed to get an audience with Colonel Tom and persuaded him to grant the fledgling calendar publisher the image rights to create the first official licensed calendar – and the celebrity calendar was created.
Originally, Danilo had created a mock-up calendar and took it to Elvis’ record label, RCA, to try to get the rights, but the company turned it down because they didn’t like the format and didn’t believe in official merchandise.
However, they did give Laurence the telephone and Telex numbers for the Colonel and, after many attempts, he eventually got a response which led to that fateful flight and a meeting which opened doors in LA.
Laurence went on to meet Pricilla Presley and the rest of the family, along with various film studios, and launched official licensed calendars for TV productions such as Dallas, Dynasty, and The Great British Bake Off, along with movies, pop stars, celebrities, and sports teams.
And the legend grows with the epic Elvis biopic having released on Friday, 24 June, where it grossed £42.22million ($51.3m) worldwide in its first three days, taking top spot at the box office – having earned a standing ovation from the audience when debuted at the Cannes Film Festival on 25 May.
At almost three hours long, the glitzy movie tells the story from the Louisiana Hayride days of 1954 to his death, with the music remixed for a younger audience.
