It appears Dorothy Gale is, once again, not going to be in Kansas any more. With the "Harry Potter" franchise winding down, Warner Brothers has set their sights on building another franchise geared toward young adults based on one of the most popular films of all time, "The Wizard of Oz."


Warner Brothers has had two separate projects in development over the past year centered around wide-eyed Dorothy Gale from Kansas -- a role made iconic by Judy Garland in 1939 -- who finds herself swept off (literally) to a magical land full of eccentric creatures called Oz. The box-office take of"Alice in Wonderland" -- $133 million domestically, and counting -- makes this project seem even more attractive.

Warner Brothers' New Line division has a version of the film written by Darren Lemke -- who helped write "Shrek Forever After" -- and produced by "Twilight" producer Temple Hill.(It's only fitting that "Twilight" would somehow be connected to a potential teen hit.) This version would not have any musical numbers and would be more faithful to "Oz" author L. Frank Baum's source material.

The second version would be set closer to the present and most likely be even darker. Especially considering that it's written by Josh Olson, who is best known for writing the screenplay for the bleak Viggo Mortensen thriller, "A History of Violence."

"Oz" is tempting for Warner Brothers for quite a few reasons. First and foremost, it could possibly fill the void left when the "Harry Potter" franchise ends. "Potter," of course, attracted an audience that skewed to a younger adult crowd; the same demographic "Oz" would target.

L. Frank Baum's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" -- the book that "The Wizard of Oz" is based on -- is just the first story in a series that spans 14 books. All fourteen books are now part of public domain. The original film, however, is not in public domain. In other words: Any reproduction of an element that was solely a part of the film's story and not the book will have rights fees still associated.

In 1985, Disney released "Return to Oz" which was based on Baum's second and third books in the series, "Ozma of Oz" and "The Marvelous Land of Oz." Disney had to pay royalties to MGM for use of the ruby red slippers.

This leads to an interesting question about the moneymaking potential of a new "Oz" franchise (ticket sales are but one revenue generator for films). Licensing merchandise may prove difficult, considering the books are in public domain. Could anyone license "Oz" merchandise? The short answer is "yes." But the general understanding is more complicated. Any new film, just like the original, would not be in public domain. Any merchandise based on characters depicted the way they appear in the new or original film would be protected. Though, it does appear that general merchandise based on the original books is fair game. What's the exact difference? If the new films are successful, that may be for a court to decide.

I would be interesting to see how they render the cowardly lion and the tin man. Obviously they'll want it to somewhat resemble the illustrations in the books, but be a bit edgier than the famous movie renditions.

I think Oz would be a fascinating place to do movies in, but I would imagine they'd have to tread very carefully with the material. There are just far too many fans of the Judy Garland movie for the not to exercise caution.

The success of the Potter movies though isn't so much that it's magical, but that it's magical in combination with the fact that it's a coming of age storyline with very strong friendships involved. Oz can't duplicate that.

TheVoid said:

which one will be the gay character?

I dunno if this would really work. If anything it would be like the Narnia films, where the first one was a hit but the second one did not do as well.

The reason for this is, it's Wizard Of Oz. Everyone knows the story already. It's been part of pop culture for decades. If they try to change anything too much people will bitch that their childhood has been raped. If they try to stay as close to the original story as possible, people will bitch that it's nothing they haven't seen before. Trust me, this happens almost EVERY TIME a comic book based movie is made (Yes, I know the Wizard Of Oz is not a comic, but you get the idea)

The Harry Potter books have the advantage of being new. Sure, the books are best sellers and thus lots of people have read them, but there are millions more people out there who have never read the books and go see the movie(s) and are like "Wow!"

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[Edited 3/11/10 21:53pm]

Can you guys post a source link w/ these articles? It'd be great to have that link. Thanks.

They just aired a TV version of this about a year ago. Not bad but I really wish Hollywood (If Holly could) spend some time developing something ORIGINAL.

Would be interesting to see how it would work.
My kids are totally bonkers about Wizard of Oz and also love Return to Oz... maybe if there was another Oz film I wouldn't have to watch the other two so much...

Graycap23 said:

Are you referring to the SyFy version called Tin Man? It was pretty good, as far as "retelling" goes. It had some interesting nuances in it.

I am dead tired of remakes and retellings though. I hear there's a Smurf movie coming up.

The worst case so far is Death at a Funeral, with fucking Chris Rock and company. The original was only about THREE YEARS AGO! It was a good story back then, and the same dwarf actor (I forget his name - he was on Nip/Tuck for a while as well) from the original is playing the same role in the remake. When you're remaking something only a couple of years later, I'm fully convinced that originality is further out the window than a fart in the wind.

No.

TheVoid said:

And you, dear friend, are you a friend of Dorothy?

Nikademus said:

They could do a full adaption of the book. The 1939 film leaves alot if I remember correctly

and why always The Wizard Of Oz? There were 13 Oz books, do a movie on the other books

I loved Wizard of Oz growing up...would always watch it when it was on tele.

No musical numbers

ernestsewell said:

Tin Man that was it.