'The Great Gatsby' Could Be The Most Visually Stunning Movie In Years [Pictures]

Baz Luhrmann appears to have done it again. The Australian director has long been known for his visually arresting movies, Romeo + Juliet (1996), Moulin Rouge (2001) and Australia (2008) all garnered high praise for aesthetics and his next project The Great Gatsby - easily the most ambitious to date - appears to continue the trend. Firstly we had the trailer - which looked stunning - and now the latest stills from the movie appear to suggest the French filmmaker and F. Scott Fitzgeralds tale of love, power, money and destruct were a match made in heaven.

"I decided to take the Trans-Siberian Express from Beijing, across Northern Russia, and then on to Paris to meet my wife and newly-born daughter. And it was in Siberia in a sardine-box of a cabin that I listened to the audio book of The Great Gatsby" explained Luhrmann about his decision to make the money, "I poured some wine, looked out and saw Siberia racing by, and started listening. It was four o'clock in the morning before I fell asleep. The next day I could not wait for night to come to get back in my little box, pour the second bottle of wine and listen to the last part," he added.

The movie follows would-be writer Nick Carraway as he leaves the Midwest and arrives in New York City in the spring of 1922. He lands next door to a mysterious partying millionaire Jay Gatsby and across the bay from his cousin Daisy and her philandering husband Tom Buchanan. Nick becomes drawn into the captivating world of Gatsby and pens a tale of love and deceit, holding a mirror to modern times.

Watch the Great Gatsby trailer below!

The stills from the movie appear to suggest that Joel Edgerton was perfectly cast as the athletic but deceitful Tom Buchanan, despite the fact that Ben Affleck was on-board until his passion project Argo got the green light. "I've never been a big reader in my life. I don't hold books as precious as a lot of other people do,' Edgerton told the Telegraph, "I dropped it into my bag and went to meet a friend and I was like, "Baz gave me a copy of the book," and my mate said, "Give me a look at that." And it was a very, very special copy, which I didn't understand all that much - you know, when books are printed and what edition they are - and then I felt terrible that I'd shown such ignorance or arrogance."

British actress Carey Mulligan plays Daisy in her biggest role to date, while the proven Tobey Maguire plays Carraway.

Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby is released in the U.S. on May 10, 2013 and in the UK three days later.

Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

Isla Fisher as Myrtle Wilson and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby