Baz Luhrmann's 3D film version of "The Great Gatsby" will open May's Cannes Film Festival, organizers for the festival posted on Tuesday March 12.
The festival opens on May 15 and runs through May 26. It has been confirmed that director Steven Spielberg will be present as the jury president.
"It is a great honor for all those who have worked on 'The Great Gatsby' to open the Cannes Film Festival," Luhrmann said in a statement. "We are thrilled to return to a country, place and festival that has always been so close to our hearts, not only because my first film 'Strictly Ballroom' was screened there 21 years ago, but also because F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside Saint-Raphaël."
The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby: a part played by Robert Redford in the 1974 film version. Tobey Maguire plays narrator Nick Carraway while Carey Mulligan stars as Gatsby's object of desire, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy's husband is played by Joel Edgerton.
In 2012, Edgerton told USA Today that watching some of the film's party scenes being filmed in Australia was a magical experience.
"Watching the party scene being made, my jaw kind of hit the floor," Edgerton said. "This big crane shots of hundreds of people with everyone dressed in so much detail. It was breathtaking to watch."
"Then you'd see all of those extras walking around dressed like they were in the 1920s but holding iPhones to their ears," he added. "It was amazing."
"The Great Gatsby" will be screened in 3D, only the second such occurrence in the festival's history. It was produced by Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures and was scripted by Luhrmann and co-screenwriter Craig Pearce.
