The Yellow Brick Road Returns
After Alice in Wonderland’s mega-success, film-world power brokers are interested in a number of remakes, such as The Wizard of Oz.
There are several ideas in mind for a Wizard of Oz type movie, including a similar adaptation of the original novel, a prequel about the wizard, and a tale about Dorothy’s granddaughter traveling through Oz.
Warner Bros. executives have mentioned to representatives of Hollywood directors about their interest in making at least one of the three movies. Seeing Alice’s $210 million worldwide opening, remakes of past films are about to come back stronger than ever.
New Line, one of Warner Bros. labels, has a first draft of a non-musical novel adaptation of L. Frank Baum The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was published in 1900. The script draft was written by Darren Lemke, who wrote Shrek Forever After.
As the Harry Potter franchise ends next year, Warner Bros. is hoping that this Wizard movie could be the basis for a franchise that would additionally draw from Baum’s 21 other books about the Land of Oz.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Temple Hill producer, Wyck Godfrey mentions:
“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.”
The second project, Oz is about Dorothy’s granddaughter returning to Oz to fight evil, and is a much darker concept. This version was written by Josh Olson, who wrote the adaptation of A History of Violence.
The third project, Brick, is a prequel about how the wizard arrived in Oz, and is in discussion with several directors. Mitchell Kapner, who wrote The Whole Nine Yards, has written a script with close ties to several of Baum’s books.
Studios hope that The Wizard of Oz’s long-standing success will attract audiences who have seen or enjoy the 1939 classic. The movie is number 6 on the American Film Institute’s best-of list.
However, many directors are unsure of whether they want to recreate the MGM classic. Studios explain that they are not recreating the movie, but making a movie out of the novel. Additionally, there have been a couple Wizard interpretations already, including Wicked and the black-oriented film, The Wiz.
These movies may affect the status of a film version of Wicked that Universal and Marc Platt, producer of Wanted, have been working on. Remaking a classic has a great deal of emotional investment involved, but with all the right elements, it has the potential of becoming a classic in its own right.