‘The Great Gatsby’ Begins Filming in a Few Weeks, Darnit

Will Leitch
·Editor

Here, at the eleventh hour, we feel obliged to repeat this, again: The whole concept of "The Great Gatsby" as filmed by Baz Luhrmann (in 3-D!) is so misguided -- it's an unfilmable novel in the first place, and Luhrmann seems like the uniquely worst person alive to capture anything resembling subtlety, let alone the nuance necessary to do right by the greatest American novel -- that we kept waiting either for someone to come to their senses and back slowly away ... or maybe the country to just go bankrupt, thus forcing us to cancel all production of entertainment activities. Desperate measures.

But according to Joel Edgerton -- who is playing Tom Buchanan -- in an interview with Collider, the movie isn't just still on, it actually begins filming in Sydney in a few weeks.

"We have been sort of in pre-production where we did a really great kind of exploration workshop in New York. I'm off on Monday and back to Australia where everything is getting prepped and ready. We are going to continue rehearsals and then we start shooting in a few weeks. Then it is all systems go until Christmas."

To remind, Baz Luhrmann (who hasn't made a movie since "Australia") has cast Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and, as Miss Baedecker, Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas. OK, that last one's not true, but honestly, would it have really surprised you?

We are not purists and believe the right filmmaker and the right approach can make any movie a new experience, no matter the source material, and salute anyone who dares to try something different and challenging. But "The Great Gatsby" directed by Baz Luhrmann in 3-D is such a horrific idea that someone's gonna get hurt. The following three people worked on the script for the 1974 version of "The Great Gatsby": Francis Ford Coppola, Philip Roth and Vladimir Nabokov. You're telling us that Baz freaking Lurhmann's the one who figured it out? Not that the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg aren't going to look terrific in stunning 3-D IMAX.

Joel Edgerton Gives Update on THE GREAT GATSBY, Starts Filming in a Few Weeks [Collider]
Baz Luhrmann Might Be Rethinking This 'Gatsby' Business [The Projector]