Just one month after we reported on a television adaptation of The Great Gatsby from Vikings creator Michael Hirst, another adaptation is already in the works! Per Variety's Artisans newsletter, The Great Gatsby will become an animated feature film — and if it's stylized like the provided artwork, we are in for a visual treat, old sport.
This new adaptation comes from director William Joyce (The Cask of Amontillado) and writer Brian Selznick (Wonderstruck). The pair will team with DNEG Feature Animation, mostly known for their visual effects work (Tenet); Joyce will serve as producer alongside DNEG Senior VP Creative Production David Prescott and Michael Siegel (The Witches). This creative team boasts "new methodologies" in animation in this take, ones they're currently cultivating on the short film "Mr. Spam Gets a New Hat."
Joyce said this about his upcoming adaptation:
"Gatsby continues to cast a powerful spell over readers unlike any other book in American letters. Much of the power of Gatsby comes from the enchantment of Fitzgerald’s prose. He created a vivid dreamscape that, to some degree, has eluded filmmakers since the silent era. The previous film versions were constrained by live-action, but innovative animation could finally realize the elusive quality of the novel."
This will mark the fifth theatrical feature film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel, after a now-lost 1926 film starring Warner Baxter, a 1949 film starring Alan Ladd, a 1974 film starring Robert Redford, and a 2013 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Is this new version simply an opportunistic jump on the novel's recent public domain status? Or the animated form finally reveal what we need to reveal about this novel's inherent beauty on the screen? And how will it stack up against the more revisionist, Watchmen-esque TV series in development?
Check out this piece of artwork related to this new animated Great Gatsby film below; not only is it a lovely piece based on the iconic novel cover, but I hope it's the style of artwork we'll see in the film.
