Definitely bad news. The studio had been hoping for this movie to be Oscar bait, but that’s not going to happen now. There isn’t a specific date for next summer, but if it’s August then the studio is dumping it into a dead zone. (And if it was earlier, they would have said so.) Releasing in August means they know it’s not Oscar caliber. WB is going to lose money on this.
TGG is widely acknowledged to be an unfilmable book. So when yet another try was announced, laughter ensued. If you Google around you can find articles pointing out the futility of even trying.
It doesn’t matter how pretty it looks, you can’t capture the Nick’s narration on film. At best you end up with something that has the same character names and settings but not the same mindset of the book.
I agree, though summer for a movie like this can be minor-nomination territory…sound, costumes, etc.
For decades I described this as my favorite book, so I get that…essentially so many different moods wind their ways through Nick Carraway’s narration that it would likely come out hopelessly muddled on film. Still…there are some really smart writers out there, I’d like to think someone could pull it together.