Cut ....... Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin withdraw their Iona Darlinghurst listing from sale

Film world idealists Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin have withdrawn their $15 million home, Iona in Darlinghurst, from sale.

Or perhaps just not given their estate agents the keys to the iconic 1880s Italianate home to enable its sale. 

Luhrmann and Martin have been in New York since the property listing premiered in the nasty news pages of News Ltd papers last weekend, headlined The Great Blowout.  

Reports the couple needed to sell Iona for financial reasons due to a budget blowout on their The Great Gatsby venture were then vehemently denied by the McGrath listing agents Joe Abboud and Chris Chung in the next day's SMH.

"Baz and Catherine want to buy a family home with a garden for their children," Joe Abboud told the SMH's Margie Blok.

"The reason Iona is for sale is because they want to separate their business from their home life."

The couple paid $10 million for the grand Victorian building in 2006 and had rented it for nine years before that.

It has been both home and work for the couple, with the ground floor being the headquarters of their production company Bazmark and upstairs a residence for Luhrmann, Martin and their children Lillian and William.

Joe Abboud emphatically hosed down suggestions of the couple running out of money, saying they were even preparing to buy a house in the Vaucluse and Watsons Bay area or near the eastern suburbs beaches.

"If they find the right house, they'll purchase it before selling Iona," he advised adding they also want to buy a creative space, a warehouse or something smaller than Iona, where they can work with their production team.

The SMH subsequently reported that the McGrath agents had a frantic conference call with the couple after all the unhelpful press.

Apparently without access to the house, everyone would have to quieten down, although its didn't stop the AFR's must-read columnist Joe Aston from giving his perspective on the couple.

The couple were (pictured below) this week at a Tiffany's function in New York.

"The vendors are overseas and will make a decision in due course if they decide to move," was the formal advice to Title Tattle.

Baz Luhrmann's really eagerly-awaited film The Great Gatsby has been chosen to open this year's Cannes Film Festival which starts May 15.

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, the film is adapted from the novel by F Scott Fitzgerald set in the roaring 1920s.

"It is a great honour for all those who have worked on The Great Gatsby to open the Cannes Film Festival," Luhrmann said in a statement.

"We are thrilled to return to a country, place and festival that has always been so close to our hearts, not only because my first film, Strictly Ballroom, was screened there 21 years ago, but also because F Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside St Raphael."

The Great Gatsby will open in Australian cinemas on May 30.

Photo courtesy of Kellie Hush