The Cannes Film Festival Opens With “The Great Gatsby”

The Cannes Film Festival Opens With “The Great Gatsby”

The opening night at the Cannes festival is generally reserved for world premieres, however this year’s edition will bring a change to the revered festival as Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby” will be the movie chosen to kick off the festival on May the 15th even though it will have its world premiere in North America on the 10th of the same month.

The offer was also made back in 1999 for the premiere of “Episode I: The Phantom Menace” but Lucas chose to premiere it in New York and so the movie didn't get the starting night at Cannes.

Cannes Director, Thierry Fremaux, has generally went for world premieres to start the festival however it was his call to put “The Great Gatsby” on the starting night, even though Werner Brother specifically said that they could not move the premiere date because of their summer calendar.

Even with the date the movie choice seems to make sense, as the star power alone on the red carpet will include Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Isla Fisher and Jason Clarke to name a few.

The risk that a bad review after the premiere in the U.S. will bring the profile of the Cannes opening night down was taken into account and a screening to certain specific opinion makers was held to verify if "The Great Gatsby" has what it takes to start the Cannes Festival as it should.

Posted by Kade Quinn on Wednesday March 13 2013, 4:27 AM EDT. Ref: Hollywood Reporter. Link. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Entertainment, Featured News. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0