UPDATE: Deadline‘s Mike Fleming is reporting that Baz Luhrmann doesn’t know if this will be his next project, but has indeed met with Leonardo DiCaprio about starring. Tobey Maguire is also his “top choice” for Nick Carraway. In terms of Seyfriend, his mind is still “wide open” for the role.
Previously:
Certainly qualifying as one of the more intriguing rumors to come out of the mill in some time: Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Amanda Seyfried as Daisy Buchanan in the long-gestating adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic The Great Gatsby (which also suggests repetitive undertones post-2008 economic collapse).
The news come via Production Weekly, and their delicious Twitter account, which seems designed to wet the appetites of cinephiles across the world.
Last we heard of the project, Baz Luhrmann had bought the book rights. He was still deciding between three projects (“a historical epic, a major musical work, or a literary adaptation”) in June. Progress? Who knows. He’s stated he won’t start shooting his next film until 2011. The man likes to take his time, with only 4 movies in 20 years.
If these rumors are true, however, the casting feels right. DiCaprio does pretty and distant quite well (if Titanic and The Beach are any indication), while Maguire would look fairly plain next to him, as Carraway is supposed to. As for Seyfried, her angel blonde hair fits the bill, as do her large, watered down eyes. Think of her performance in Mean Girls, only not played for as many laughs.
DiCaprio seems determined to play Fitzgerald, or at least his persona. Or, maybe someone out there is determined to have him to play the man. The thesp was also attached to John Curran’s The Beautiful and The Damned, a biopic concerning Fitzgerald’s tortured relationship with his wife Zelda. Then again, DiCaprio’s attached to close to 30 projects in one capacity or another, so the margin for his eventual passing is large.
If history has shown us anything, it is that theatrical adaptations of literary masterworks are damn near impossible. Be it The Sun Also Rises, Crime and Punishment or the particularly miscalculated Gatsby film from the 70s, starring Robert Redford and Sam Waterston, taking iconic prose and putting it to celluloid seldom goes over well. Jack Clayton‘s 1974 film is a precursor for what Zack Snyder would do to Alan Moore’s Watchmen: a direct adaptation of a work that strictly defines its medium. Meaning, quite frankly, that a direct adaptation feels lazy, looks lazy and is lazy. It’s also awkward and plodding. If you’re going to adapt Gatsby, it must be a Gatsby for the screen, not the page. Jay Gatsby on the page is a cypher, a ghost. His character almost isn’t a character at all. He’s a statement, an answer to question readers ask only after they’ve finished reading. Same with Daisy. To have them played straight is to offer your viewers soap boxes as leads. And that is not interesting.
Let’s hope this potential cast is given more to do than that.
What do you think of this? Do you like The Great Gatsby? Luhrmann? DiCaprio? Fitzgerald?