8 Films That Suffered Horrendous Delays

3. The Great Gatsby Okay, so this probably isn't a "horrendous" delay. But it's one of my favourite books, so I'll take any excuse to write about it. And I have written about Baz Lurhman's version of Fitzgerald's classic jazz-age novel in a previous list; my take is that I very much enjoyed it and thought it was acceptably loyal to the book while developing its own unique personality. A Lurhman adaptation of Gatsby was on the cards from 2010, with the director flip-flopping about until finally committing in early 2011. By all accounts filming was relatively painless, and was wrapped up in a speedy three months in December 2011. With an initial release date of December 2012, Gatsby was expected to be a strong Oscar contender. However, the film was pushed back to summer 2013 for unspecified reasons. Whether this delay was down to Lurhman's tinkering reputation and his demands for re-shoots, or a ploy by Warner Brothers to avoid the flood of Oscar contenders that came out around winter 2012 (including Django Unchained that DiCaprio himself starred in) is not clear. We'll have to wait till next awards season to find out if the tactic worked.