Speculation throughout Twitter about why Warner Bros. has decided to move Gatsby to Summer, 2013. The season is too crowded, they don’t want to compete against themselves, they need a much bigger space to release this pic…either way, it remains a highly anticipated film. What do you think?
this doesn’t seem like blockbuster material. why not keep it in the winter to shoot for the oscars?
joker, we think it could be that Warner Bros has so many major movies coming out in December, it doesn’t really make financial sense for them to have all their biggest films competing against each other.
I think WB made a smart financial decision.
Everybody online flipped right out when Paramount held back Shutter Island until February. But the experts at Par looked at their Oscar competition and decided it would be foolish to throw a dark gothic horror on screens for Christmas. And because they waited to give it more breathing room after the multiplex chaos cleared out, Shutter Island then became Scorsese’s highest-grossing movie ever.
I DON´T LIKE IT! Really! Summer? Why summer?
This movie must be amazing, an adpatation so long wanted and loved from one of my favorite novels/one of best written in English.
And they talk about summer?
I´m very disapponinted.
Better shut my mouth!
yawn … nobody cares
Disappointed but also relieved. I think the summer would take a lot of the pressure off this. If it is actually good, who knows, it might be well served by the element of surprise. Actually I could already see a number of critics licking their lips in anticipation of taking this one down, good or not. There are lots of quick take downs during awards season. It was always bound to be controversial for fans of the book who could brook no elements that might be less than rigidly presented onscreen, a mistake, in my opinion, as film has to open things up at visually. That is why I think previous versions have been less than successful. And Luhrman is controversial as a filmmaker because he’s always so out there. Given the right material he can obviously deliver. Australia went off the rails because the two leads didn’t seem to have much chemistry and his focus wasn’t where it might have counted — the Aborigine side story was far more compelling. Also possible that the suits got cold feet about showing something that just didn’t seem likely to recoup it’s money during the holidays up against other movies like The Hobbit and Leo would be competing with himself.
Well Moulin Rouge came out in the summer. So did Gladiator, Crash, The Help, Inglorious Basterds etc – so it can’t be totally ruled out as being a non contender (even though I doubt it will be a contender for the major awards but we’ll wait and see).
This is too bad. It makes me think it won’t be very good. I’m disappointed already.
Great news, more room for TDKR:) I’m hoping Life of Pi is a flop, so bp is like:
The Dark Knight Rises
Les Miserables
Zero Dark Thirty
Lincoln(is this movie even coming out this year? I havent seen any advertising)
The Master
The Hobbit
Maybes:
Anna Karenina
Django Unchained
Life of Pi
Darn it! I was going to have a high tea/movie meetup with my film club! I really hope this movie doesn’t suck!
With the trailer already released, this is a strange decision. It’s probably not awards material.
They probably looked at it and realized that this version has no more coherence than the others. It is an unfilmable book. To make it interesting as a plot you have to change it and then it is not The Great Gatsby anymore. Good luck with whatever they are up to, the cast is first rate.
i think they are tweaking a stinker
Summer 2013, eh? So are they throwing it under Man of Steel or Wolverine? Maybe Jurassic Park 3D?
Never had high (or even medium) hopes for this and I would imagine something similar to what Chris Price describes above – someone got a look at it, had a seizure, then made sure it was shoved into summer fun season where they can grab some cash from Leo and Tobey fans.
Serious contenders (esp. based on classics) that can’t compete in the holiday rush would never be released in summer, bypassing the festival circuit, so it will have to play Cannes or Venice to get any cred.
I thought that the first trailer made this look pretty terrible, particularly as opposed to the first Les Miz trailer which came out around the same time (and which has given everyone I know – men and women – goosebumps the first time they saw it). I’m not especially surprised by this move.
@ Tony. This thing has a $130+ million budget to make back, they can’t dump it in the spring. It absolutely is a quality thing. Summer is perfect for overblown 3D shit, this should fit right in.
They say unspecified date in summer so it may not end up in summer.
I don`t think that push-backs necessaqrily spell doom. Shutter Island was a boxoffice hit in the February dumping ground, for example. So GG may not get Oscar noms but it may not become the John Carter of 2013 either.
What`s clear is that WB doesn`t believe it has a chance in 2012 for whatever reason like:
a) too much competiton including WB`s own movies such as The Hobbit which I suppose they want to build for third-movie-wins-for-all-three sweep a la LOTR and need all of them nominated in Picture, Director and Adapted Script
b) GG needs some rework which is what Inglorious Basterds did after lukewarm Cannes reception and we know how that one turned out
c) it sucks so much it must be released during the season where crap movies such as Smurfs 2 and Grown Ups 2 are supposed to trive cause their predecessors did
d) rumours that execs including Nolan are not happy with Man of Steel are true so WB desperately needs another tentpole in case MoS goes down the Superman Returns Routh,er, route
e) they expect so much money from The Hobbit that this is like pushing HP:HBP from Thanksgiving 2008 to summer 2009 because TDK made enough money for 2008 and they needed a sure-fire tentpole in 2009
f) Leo made a wish for WB to stop splitting his Django Oscar votes and WB genie granted him one
g) whateevr elese feel free to add
This doesn’t look good. It means they have lost faith in it. Upsetting. I was so excited for this and I will remain so, but with a little less zip to it. Wonder why no one can adapt this film to screen and make it good?
Was the writing on the wall when we realized Ziegfeld was misspelled on a billboard in Times Square in the trailer? ahaha
Hamlet, I would absolutely love that decision. I got to see a test screening of Gravity and it knocked me out. Full on immersive experience. I do realize why Gravity was pushed, though. The special effects were a long way away from being done, to the point that when I saw it my first thought was there is virtually no way this thing can be finished by Thanksgiving (its initial release date). Then they pushed it and I thought it was for the best. The few bits that were 100% complete were unlike anything else I’ve ever seen.
But I think this news pretty much confirms for me that Gatsby is a very, very bad movie. I’d like to venture a guess as to what happened here. Baz finally got to screen the movie for the suits. The mood in the room goes from excited at first to seriously dour about 30 minutes in. By an hour and a half, they’ve realized this thing has no traction in the Oscar race, and they’re already making plans to cut their losses. But there’s still like another hour left to go in the picture. So now the panic sets in.
“Can we just burn the negatives and never think about it again? No, can’t do that, we’ve spent too much money on this thing. Well, at least there are famous faces in it and people know the book. It’ll do decent business at least on opening weekend. But word of mouth might be a problem. It’s not possible to get less than 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, right?”
I imagine this is a heightened version of what took place, which then caused them to move it to next year.
So, in a year with a light lead actress ballot, one of the supposed front-runners get booted to next year? If Anna Karina turns out to be a dud or too post-modern for the academy, Hushpuppy could win it all.
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I wonder if Warners will bring back Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity and put it in this Christmas Day spot?
I don’t think this affects anything in the BP race. I never thought this was going to be strong enough anyway. Outside of Moulin Rouge (which I think is overpraised) he’s never even been in a BP conversation at the end of the year. And Moulin Rouge, let’s face it, was a gimmick picture. Yeah it was a great gimmick, but it was still a gimmick.
good for Warner. they are good Oscar campaigners, but some years don’t have the right candidates – this year they had too many, and could have shortchanged one or more films worthy of more awards consideration.
Fall 2013… Maybe, who knows… it will create additional intigue, but also increase expectations and dissapointment if the movie is not so good.
I have another feeling, maybe Leo diCaprio is pushed as Lead for Django and they want to avoit vote-split between the same actor. Nobody saw a screenplay of Django?
From what I remember reading, Gatsby is set to be released in 3D which, to my mind, makes it a better fit for summer than it otherwise would be. Personally I feel that it seemed more like a prestige winter movie though.
Why summer when this is clearly a fall type film? The press release from WB says they are moving it so more people can see it. How about Fall 2013?
I suppose producers are pushing this movie to Cannes 2013 opening or something like that. and I totaly agree, “The Great Gatsby” doesn’t look so strong at the end of this year, there are so many go anticipated movies, so probably we’ll have 10 nominees for Best picture.
Talking about Carey Mulligan, she has quite good chance to get nominated, but now it looks like all performances will be forgotten.
Isn’t it quite unorthodox to do this when trailers have already been released? I saw it before Magic Mike and the reception was very good.
Much as I have reservations about this, I’m looking forward to it more and more, and the extra wait is gonna frustrate me. There’s so much more material already out for this film to hold it off for that long. Pfft.
At least Gatsby and the GI Joe sequel have something in common, then; a reason why they pushed back their respective release dates to next year 😉
OH!!! Almost forgot. I saw an early screening of Frankie Go Boom!
Ron Perlman in drag, it’s a HOOT of a film. Felt a bit like a Hangover type of film, but REALLY funny and odd. Chris Noth was also HI-larious! 🙂
If the move was due to quality they would’ve dumped it in the spring. Plenty of great dramas have been released in the summer.
I re-read the damn novel for this Christmas in anticipation!!!! Damnit! And for it to come out in the Summer (of any year) says to me: “it may not be that good” :-(. To me, it’s very rare to find a really great, critical darling film before July of any year. Obviously it depends on what strikes. This year it’s been (for me):
Moonrise Kingdom(which I thought was delightful)
Jeff, Who Lives At Home(which I found the most intriguing film I’ve seen thus far!)
Southern Beasts of the Wild (which left me wanting something more)
I’ve seen also
Snow White and the Huntsman (thought it was going to be killer, and it was a TOTAL dud)
Rock of Ages (Tom Cruise was actually super fun! The rest was unecessary)
The Dark Knight Rises (still not sure if was good, too long, too many characters, or just the filler film to set us up for another one to come despite this being Nolan’s “last” Batman flick)
I’m looking forward to spend my money on other films that are going to worth my salt this year, and Gatsby was to be one of them :-(.
I’m a little sad…
Why the Summer if that were the case, though? I definitely hope that’s the case. I’ll still have my hopes up. The trailer looked gorgeous in 3D before “Prometheus.”
I’m going to go with crowded field. With ten likely high profile nominees this year still due out (The Master, Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, The Hobbit, Les Miserables, Life if Pi, Flight, Anna Karenina, Django Unchained) there’s already a pileup at the end of the year.
I think “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”