The first reviews have yet to land but Leonardo DiCaprio has a firm view about how well director Baz Luhrmann has adapted the classic American novel The Great Gatsby for one of Hollywood's most anticipated movies this year.
"He pulled it off with flying colours," the star of Titanic, The Departed and Django Unchained said at the world premiere in New York.
"I met Baz two decades ago when I was 18 years old and he had this insane notion of doing Romeo + Juliet in this hyper universe," DiCaprio said on the stylish black carpet at the Lincoln Centre. "I thought he was crazy.
"But he's a groundbreaking filmmaker who's not afraid to take on some of the most classic, complex, beloved material of all time."
DiCaprio plays gilded millionaire Jay Gatsby, who yearns for the love of Daisy Buchanan in the 3D adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel set in 1920s New York. It was shot in and around Sydney on a budget estimated at more than $180 million after a difficult, extended shoot that pushed the release back from December to May.
Luhrmann and his wife/creative partner Catherine Martin were joined at the premiere by Carey Mulligan (who plays Daisy), Tobey Maguire (who plays Nick Carraway), Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan), Isla Fisher (Myrtle Wilson), the film's music and executive producer, hip-hop-star Jay-Z, and, getting some of the biggest cheers from the crowd outside, DiCaprio and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan (who plays Meyer Wolfsheim).
DiCaprio said one of the attractions of the movie was Luhrmann's desire to be faithful to a great novel.
"Gatsby is the seminal American novel that defines America in the 1920s and predicted the stock market crash that soon came after," he said. "The centre figure is this very complex, mysterious, existential character known as the Great Gatsby. As much as Baz wants to recreate these worlds and give it a modern context, he's always vigilant about sticking to what made that novel great."
Luhrmann, whose previous movies also include Strictly Ballroom, Moulin Rouge and Australia, said the novel was especially relevant today.
"That book reflects who we are, where we are now," he said. "It's always relevant but it's particularly relevant now. I just wanted to find a way of doing it as if Fitzgerald was making a movie. He put African-American jazz in the book. I wanted it to feel as exciting as when he put jazz in so the other J helped me blend jazz and hip-hop to reflect us now."
In a quieter moment before the premiere, Luhrmann told Fairfax Media that it seemed silly to compare a movie to a baby but both births came with anxiety.
"I have no expectations," he said. "Only hopes. And my hopes are that the baby is born, it finds enough love to live and that it grows up and has a long and useful life."
The Great Gatsby is released in the US next week before opening the Cannes Film Festival. It reaches Australian cinemas on May 30.
