The Great Gatsby After stumbling out the gate with crippling bouts of ego posturing, casting dilemmas, and production delays, director Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby has finally gotten under way.

Principal photography for the film began in Luhrman's native Australia with Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire starring as Nick Carraway, and Joel Edgerton and Carey Mulligan as Tom and Daisy Buchanon. Luhrmann will direct from a script by Craig Pearce who also penned Charlie St. Cloud.

One of the most interesting notes about the film production, as well as being one of its most oft-cited points of controversy with potential viewers, (aside from the fact that it didn't need to be remade yet again) is that it will be shot and distributed in 3D. With his syrupy Australia and its bloated production values and over-cooked romantacisms, Luhrmann showed he's yet to get a good handle on reeling in the extracurricular stuff and putting the focus on the story where it needs to be. And with such a strong, time-tested story as The Great Gatsby, if it's done well, there's no need for a lot of sugary toppings. Super-heroes can benefit from 3D. Literary classics, not so much.

For the uninitiated, the story follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz and bootleg kings. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby, and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy, and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan. It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

The Great Gatsby will be distributed in 3D and 2D by Warner Bros. Pictures and will release to screens by late 2012.