Great Gatsby director Baz Luhrmann says his film is an Australian movie

IT may be based on a great American novel, and financed by a US studio, but Baz Luhrmann says The Great Gatsby is an Australian film.

Baz Luhrmann

IT might have been inspired by a great American novel, and financed by a US studio, but Baz Luhrmann says The Great Gatsby is most definitely an Australian film.

Luhrmann says his 3D adaptation of F.Scott Fitzgerald's 1920s novel qualifies as an Australian film because he had the idea to do it.

"It's not about sitting around under gum trees," said the director in Sydney this week.

"(But) This city, this state, this country got the movie made. I tried to make it as an American film - in New York. I couldn't do it."

Luhrmann, interviewed for tomorrow's episode of Channel 10's Meet The Press, says the film was dead until he persuaded Warner Bros that he could recreate Long Island in Sydney.

"They said you are crazy. We had so many obstacles but collectively we did it. Jay Gatsby's mansion is my old school. "

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While The Great Gatsby's title character (Leonardo DiCaprio) and narrator (Tobey Maguire) are, of course, American, many of the other key actors, including Joel Edgerton and Elizabeth Debicki, all the key creative team and 90 per cent of the crew are Australian.

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"The imagination to do it, the vision to do it, is Australian," said Luhrmann, who makes no apologies for reimagining the American classic within his own very distinctive Antipodean vernacular.

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"Hollywood has been taking foreign books for years - War and Peace, anyone? Russia's greatest novel. The Thornbirds? - and making them in their home territory. There's nothing wrong with that but why can't we do it?"

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The Great Gatsby has taken almost $140 million at the international box office - $96 million in the US alone - performing well above expectations. The film opens in Australia on May 30.

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