Photo: Bazmark Films / Warner Bros / Kobal / Shutterstock
Do we think we’re going to cheer that idea up with a glass of champagne under some fireworks? Almost 100 years after F. Scott Fitzgerald launched his magnum opus, The big Gatsby is being adapted for a big-budget television miniseries. THR reports that The Tudors and Vikings creator Michael Hirst is leading the series as an international production, with a premium cable TV channel that is expected to acquire the rights in the United States. Hirst is “reimagined” Gatsby it will be very different from what we saw in the 2013 adaptation of Baz Luhrmann. He intends to explore “the black community of New York in the 1920s, as well as the musical subculture”, while “delving into the hidden lives of its characters through the modern lens of a fragmented American dream”. This lens will also include “gender, race and sexual orientation” and “the weak point of the American experience”.
Fitzgerald’s estate is supporting the series, with the author’s great-granddaughter, Blake Hazard, serving as a producer. “I have long dreamed of a more diverse and inclusive version of Gatsby that best reflects the America we live in, one that can allow all of us to see each other in Scott’s wildly romantic text, ”said Hazard. “Michael brings a deep reverence for Scott’s work to the project, but also a fearlessness to bring such an iconic story to life in an accessible and new way. Call it Bridgerton effect, with just a lot more jazz and corpses floating in a pool.