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The Great Gatsby Pushed to Summer 2013: What Does This Mean For The Film?
Other | Tuesday 7th August 2012 | Osh
What was meant to be one of this Christmas' big releases has now seen its release date realigned wtih the more warm climes, now with an inderterminate Summer release date. But why the sudden move?
It's possible that Warner Bros. thought Baz Luhrmann's movie, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's popular novel of the same name and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire (plus an interesting against-type for Hollywood newcomer Joel Edgerton), may not be able to reap the full benefit of its box office potential while in the company of other big (and honestly, bigger) contenders such as The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Les Misérables and Django Unchained. The half-year push into Summer, while quite extreme, will probably help out on this front at least.
What it definitely is missing out on is the awards season; year after year, the big guns get released from roughly November through to February so they're fresher in the Academy's minds (which is probably a good thing, as the majority of them are 50 plus and most likely on the slightly senile side). Spielberg's War Horse was released early this year, for example. But despite its high-end literary source material, Luhrmann deals in fast-paced, ridiculously enjoyable trash, so it's not likely Luhrmann was going to win anything in the first place. The closest he's ever come to an Oscar was a nomination at the 2002 awards for Moulin Rouge, probably his most crowd-pleasing film. A suspected future nod for Best Supporting Actor for DiCaprio is totally on the cards, however, and it'd be surprising if Mulligan won't end up in the nominations for Best Lead Actress.
So as The Great Gatsby waltzes into cinemas in somehwere just under a year from now, we'll only have to continue to speculate, like we already have done since this ambitious adaptation was first announced: will it be any good?
- Gary Green (@FilmOnTrial)
