As already glimpsed in his Kanye-trotting premiere trailer for “The Great Gatsby,” Baz Luhrmann has confirmed his over-exuberant style will remain consistent for his fifth film. Unfortunately, as the Australian filmmaker's filmography has repeatedly shown, a pretty studio penny is also required to depict all that opulence on-screen, and now with Luhrmann facing a six-month delay, he's looking further than Warner Bros. to add some extra Jazz-age panache to the project.
Coming on the heels of the not-entirely-troubling news that Warner Bros. have moved 'Gatsby' from Christmas this year to the summer of next, the Herald Sun reports the studio has now declined Luhrmann extra money, on top of the $127 million already invested, for an extra round of reshoots with main cast involved. So instead, the director himself is apparently trying to raise extra financing privately. In addition to extra production work in Australia, Luhrmann is hoping part of any additional funding he raises will go towards fine-tuning the visual effects, which from basically every shot seen thus far, look considerable. Speaking to Vulture, Luhrmann explained his process as of late. “I'm just very nourished by working on it. I'm just thrilled. Right now I'm working on music, you can imagine how involved I am in the music alone."
'Gatsby' finds itself in a strange series of events that on the outside point toward a “World War Z”-esque catastrophe, but as those filmmakers have repeatedly tried to reiterate, a cash-hesitant studio and release shift shouldn't alter much. Opening the film up to a wider summer audience, as well as taking extra time to tighten up the score and VFX denotes no lack of faith in the Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire adaptation, so we'll see what Luhrmann uses his extra time to dazzle us with when it comes out next summer.