Baz Luhrmann settles on THE GREAT GATSBY next, with DiCaprio & Maguire?
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?