Last week, "The Great Gatsby" director Baz Luhrmann sparked a frenzy of Internet speculation when he reportedly remarked that he'd like to team up with Leonardo DiCaprio on a film adaptation of "Hamlet".
"What else could we possibly do as a follow-up?" he told a red-carpet reporter for The Hollywood Reporter, while cautioning, "It's just a dream at this point."
On Friday, however, Luhrmann told The Huffington Post that his comments had been "misreported."
"Someone said, 'Where does Leonardo go from here?' And I just said, 'After Gatsby, the only way up is Hamlet,'" Luhrmann said. Even then, however, he refused to rule out the possibility of making the film: "Be careful," he said, "one can never say never."
"The Great Gatsby" is Luhrmann's second collaboration with DiCaprio. Their previous effort, 1996's "Romeo + Juliet," has become a cult classic among romantics of a certain stripe.
"The Great Gatsby" grossed just over $50 million in its opening weekend, enough to place No. 2 behind Robert Downey Jr.'s comic-book juggernaut "Iron Man 3."
The critical reception was mixed at best, but audiences gave it an 84 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And Luhrmann seems happy with his star's performance.
"Leonardo's Gatsby, by the way, whatever people are saying, I think few people can argue with the nuance and the revelation of the characterization," Luhrmann told The Huffington Post.
In recent decades, Hollywood actors including Ethan Hawke, Kenneth Branagh and Mel Gibson have tackled the role of Shakespeare's indecisive prince. But to some purists, none has cleared the bar set by Laurence Olivier's 1948 version.
