More Info on Dueling Oz Projects
The Witchita Eagle has an article on the two Wizard of Oz-related projects that Warner Bros. is considering, as well as a third film in development.
"As Tim Burton's interpretation of Alice in Wonderland continues to attract audiences," states the paper at www.kansas.com, "film-world power brokers are looking to jump-start a number of remakes of The Wizard of Oz — a close adaptation of the original novel, a prequel about the wizard and a darker tale about Dorothy's granddaughter in Oz... Two Oz updates that have been set up at Warner Bros. —one at its New Line label and another at the parent studio — are suddenly surging in the wake of the $210 million worldwide opening weekend of Alice. Warner Bros. executives have put the word out to representatives of top-level Hollywood directors that they're keen to make at least one of the movies.
"The New Line movie is conceived as a comparatively faithful, nonmusical adaptation of the original L. Frank Baum novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Produced by Twilight producers Temple Hill Entertainment, the film is written by Shrek Forever After writer Darren Lemke, who has completed a draft of a script. The script hews closely to the book, with only small adjustments. Producers hope that the movie can become the basis of a franchise whose future installments would draw from the 21 other books Baum wrote about the Land of Oz. Warner Bros., whose Harry Potter draws to a close next year, is hoping the same.
"'The idea is that no one has done a faithful adaptation of the Frank Baum books, something that's more of a straight adventure story," says Temple Hill's Wyck Godfrey, a producer on the film. "The MGM movie (from 1939) took the source material and made a classic musical."
Then there's Oz, which Josh Olson has written, which deals with Dorothy's granddaughter who comes to the Emerald City to fight an evil. Plus producer Joe Roth is developing Brick, a prequel dealing with the way the Wizard arrives in Oz in the first place.
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