It's a full year until Baz Luhrmann's 3D take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic The Great Gatsby hits cinemas, but the first official shots from the film have now been released (see them above and below), featuring Carey Mulligan, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire.
It all looks wonderfully flappery, but with a budget over over $100 million, you'd hope it'd look good. It does seem to be an awful lot to spend on a period piece in the current climate, but many feel Warner Bros. is looking to the future with the movie. While The Great Gatsby is seen as one of the great American novels, the definitive film version is yet to be made (the closest is the rather stuffy 70s version with Robert Redford). If they can get it right, Warner will be making money out of the film for decades, especially as it's a core text for most US schools, and so spending the money now should pay off in the future - and indeed could well pay off now.
Here's the synopsis: 'The Great Gatsby follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan. It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.'
