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Movies & TV

21st Nov 2018

The Great Gatsby is getting turned into a TV series

Rory Cashin

gatsby

Sounds like a stellar idea, old boy!

2013’s adaptation of the classic F. Scott Fitzgerald story was a bit of an odd one.

It wasn’t fantastically well reviewed (55% on Metacritic), but it did win two Oscars, made over $350 million worldwide, and resulted in countless Gatsby-themed parties to be thrown because Leo looked good in those suits, so we all should too, right?

Anyways, its influence is still kind of felt to this day – big band covers of pop songs is still a thing thanks to this movie’s hugely popular soundtrack – so it makes a certain kind of sense that there is now a small-screen version of the story on the way.

However, it isn’t exactly the same story that we’ve been told several times before, as the official logline (via Deadline) can tells us:

“The series is a retelling of the tale through that very lens, embracing the cultural aspects of the time during the height of the Harlem Renaissance.”

What very lens might that be? Well, this version of the story – which is going under the title Gatz – will show the leading character as a mixed-race man in 1920s New York.

The new version will be overseen by the producers of Edge Of Tomorrow and The Lego Movie 2, and will be making the show exclusively for YouTube’s own streaming channel, YouTube Premium.

There is obviously also a hangover of the popularity of Crazy Rich Asians to be felt here – extravagant lifestyle lived by people who aren’t exclusively Caucasian – which can only be a good thing

So let the dream casting begin… who would you want to play a younger, mixed-race Jay Gatsby?

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