Walking out of Tim Burton’s dismal Alice in Wonderland I thought to myself that this vision of a fantasy world would work much better in L Frank Baum’s Oz universe. And apparently Warner Bros feels the same way, as they have not one but two Oz projects in the works.
Both of these films have been slowly gestating for a while; I heard about a Josh (A History of Violence) Olson-penned version quite some time ago. But Alice doing
amazing business has breathed life into both of them. The Olson one
sounds really horrible – it’s got Dorothy Gale’s granddaughter going to
Oz and fighting evil, and it has Todd McFarlane – dipshit between the
awful Twisted Land of Oz action figure line – involved in some capacity. The other is vaguer and is just called Oz. That has a script from the Shrek Forever After writer.
We’ve been back to Oz before – Return to Oz tanked
in the 80s, and there was a cartoon sequel in the decade before that.
I’m actually shocked that Baum’s expansive world hasn’t been on screen
more often, and that the original book has been tackled more. The
classic Wizard of Oz took lots of liberties, and a new version could be quite different from Judy Garland and company.
While The Wizard of Oz is
one of my favorite movies of all time I’m not against a
reboot/remake/sequel/whatever. There’s rich ground to cover… as long
as you don’t make Dorothy a fucking dominatrix. That said, Alice‘s box office makes me think we’re in for one dark Oz movie. Walter Murch was ahead of his time.