"Australia" helmer Baz Lurhmann has acquired the film rights to the Scott Fitzgerald's 1920s novel, "The Great Gatsby."

The novel, set in the American Jazz Age, follows the glamour, decadence, and excessiveness of the "roaring twenties" as the economy soared. It has already been adapted into both a Broadway play and four films, including the 1974 version starring Robert Redford.

He told the Hollywood Reporter, "If you wanted to show a mirror to people that says, 'You've been drunk on money,' they're not going to want to see it. But if you reflected that mirror on another they'd be willing to."

"People will need an explanation of where we are and where we've been, and The Great Gatsby can provide that explanation."

The film has no script yet, but Lurhmann intends to focus on it after "Australia's" run in theaters.