Baz Luhrmann's Next Project: The Great Gatsby

Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman at the Rome premiere of "Australia", Rome, Italy. (Photo Agency)more pics »Baz Luhrmann, the director behind Strictly Ballroom and Moulin Rouge, has officially acquired the rights to the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic The Great Gatsby, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Luhrman had previously noted his desire to bring The Great Gatsby to the screen for a third time, saying:
If you wanted to show a mirror to people that says, 'You've been drunk on money,' they're not going to want to see it. But if you reflected that mirror on another time they'd be willing to....people will need an explanation of where we are and where we've been, and 'The Great Gatsby' can provide that explanation.
Given Luhrmann's intimations that this is a particularly good recession-era film, it's no surprise that he wants to move quickly with the project. He'll have to be careful though - previous adaptations by Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Markowitz (his version was actually made-for-TV) were met with resistance by critics. It's all in the casting - let's hope he doesn't pick Nicole Kidman for Daisy.

More pictures of Baz Luhrmann:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•