The Great Gatsby to kick off Cannes

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby will open the 66th Cannes Film Festival but will screen out of competition, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The much-anticipated Gatsby is Luhrmann’s second film, after Moulin Rouge!, to open the film festival, and the second time ever that a 3-D film will hold the honour, following 2009’s Up.

Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, Leonardo DiCaprio stars as affluent Jay Gatsby alongside Tobey Maguire as his friend Nick Carraway, Carey Mulligan as his love Daisy Buchanan, and Joel Edgerton as Daisy’s husband Tom.

Luhrmann said it was an honour to be opening the festival.

“We are thrilled to return to a country, place and festival that has always been so close to our hearts … F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside St. Raphael.”

Cannes kicks off May 15, 2013. The Great Gatsby arrives in cinemas May 30.