According to a
Deadline exclusive, cinema's most flamboyant director
Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge, Romeo & Juliet) is close to settling on an adaptation of F. Scott's Fitzgerald's classic 20's set, American Dream deconstruction novel
The Great Gatsby as his next feature film, which now looks likely to star
Leonardo DiCaprio (Gatsby) and
Tobey Maguire (Carraway) as the two male leads if filming can get underway next year. What Luhrmann's not yet sure of is who will play Gatsby's long lost love, Daisy Buchanan, though he's not stuck for choices. The talented
Rebecca Hall recently 'workshopped' for the part with DiCaprio and Maguire, but from the sounds of things she struggled to hit the right chemistry key with the two male leads. So Luhrmann will invite
Keira Knightley,
Amanda Seyfried,
Blake Lively,
Abbie Cornish,
Michelle Williams and
Scarlett Johansson to audition over the next two weeks in New York, and hopefully team each contender with DiCaprio, depending on schedules. It's said, Luhrmann is personally keen on
Natalie Portman. But who isn't these days?
Luhrmann wrote the script with his regular co-scribe
Craig Pearce (Romeo & Juliet, Moulin Rouge). The film is setup at Sony, but despite a cool casting coming together, I have never enjoyed any of Luhrmann's movies and I've been more of a fan of Fitzgerald's other novels, if I'm being honest. And didn't DiCaprio already star in a Gatsby-esque
Revolutionary Road. Wouldn't this be him repeating himself?