|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Author
|
Topic: WB Remaking Wizard of Oz
|
|
|
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 11-16-2010 11:06 PM
Damn. It's bad enough to hear Warner Bros. wanting to do a remake of The Wizard of Oz, but the remake idea seems to be a foregone conclusion if Disney is pushing its own efforts at redoing Oz.
Maybe this is part of the end game to kill movie theaters, then kill America's movie industry and then ultimately "outsource" it all to China and India (with white, American owners still somehow, hopefully in control). This makes me feel like punching a puppy in the face. Not that I would actually do that. But figuratively, yeah, I want to smash something out of anger over this nonsense.
What's next? A remake of Mario Puzo's: The Godfather starring Will Ferril, Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller? Or how about McG helming a new "re-visioned" E.T.: The Extraterrestrial, naturally with Justin Bieber playing "Elliot."
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mark J. Marshall
Film God
Posts: 3188
From: New Castle, DE, USA
Registered: Aug 2002
|
posted 11-17-2010 04:06 AM
Sorry - this story had me so baffled and dumb struck that I completely neglected the forum rules. I guess everyone else was so moved by the story that they didn't notice either. Apparently it's too late to edit my original post, so here we go:
Link
quote: Warner Bros Wants Zemeckis For 'Wizard Of Oz' Remake Based On Original MGM Script By MIKE FLEMING | Tuesday November 16, 2010 @ 6:59pm EST
Whenever you remake a revered Hollywood film, there’s bound to be controversy, but going right to the original material is certainly an interesting approach. Warner Bros is in early talks with Robert Zemeckis to direct a live-action remake of the The Wizard of Oz and plans to use the original script from the 1939 classic. Warner Bros owns the screenplay because Ted Turner bought it along with the MGM library before Warner Bros bought Turner’s empire. This latest Oz twist comes as Disney is trying very hard to mount The Great And Powerful Oz. Sam Raimi is developing that film while he simultaneously develops World of Warcraft for Warner Bros and Legendary. Disney and Raimi want Robert Downey Jr as their star. The original Wizard of Oz script had a total of 19 writers (seems not much has changed in Hollywood) with many of them uncredited, including Bert Lahr who played the film’s Cowardly Lion. This wouldn’t be the first hugely high-profile remake for Zemeckis; he's in the middle of a Yellow Submarine animated redux for Disney, scheduled for a 2012 release. Also, after working for years in performance-capture animation, Zemeckis has been moving toward a return to a live-action films, attaching himself to Timeless also at Warner Bros.
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mike Blakesley
Film God
Posts: 12767
From: Forsyth, Montana
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 11-17-2010 11:08 AM
This is old news, actually. I posted a thread about this last March, but it looks like the idea has morphed into a true re-make rather than a "reimagining" as reported in the previous story... I'll reproduce it here in case the link has gone dead.
quote: EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off Disney's massive success with Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," Warner Bros. wants to remake another childhood classic. Like, really classic.
The studio is examining two existing "Wizard of Oz" projects, with an eye toward giving one of them a modern gloss and moving it toward the screen.
One project, called "Oz," currently lives at Warner's New Line label. It's being produced by Temple Hill, which is behind a little franchise called "Twilight," and has a script written by Darren Lemke, a writer on the upcoming "Shrek Forever After."
A second "Wizard of Oz" project, set up at Warners proper, skews a little darker -- it's written by "A History of Violence" screenwriter Josh Olson and focuses on a granddaughter of Dorothy who returns to Oz to fight evil. "Clash of the Titans" producer Basil Iwanyk and his Thunder Road Pictures are behind that one. ("Spawn" creator Todd MacFarlane is potentially involved in a producerial capacity, to give you some idea of the tone.)
While the idea of a new "Wizard of Oz" movie is said to be in the development, let's-bat-this-around stage, it's been advanced seriously enough on the lot that representatives for some of the top directors around Hollywood have been briefed.
The Judy Garland-starring "The Wizard of Oz" from 1939 -- we could give you the refresher on witches, tin men, Dorothy and everyone else, but really, do we need to? -- has been given alternative treatments before. There was the 1978 black-themed film adaptation of the stage play "The Wiz." And of course about six years ago came the Broadway adaptation of Gregory Maguire's "Wicked," an alternative story of girls, witches and Emerald City politics. The property proved a huge stage hit, prompting a film version that's in development at Universal and "Wanted" producer Marc Platt.
Audiences are likely to respond to the idea of a new silver screen "Wizard of Oz" with gusto ("at least the first one was good," said one colleague we told) or with horror, precisely because the original is such a classic.
But for Warners, there's plenty of appeal in trying to take the story of Dorothy & Co. back to the big screen. For one, there's the bonkers $210 million global opening for "Alice," which shows that if you're trying to create a mega-blockbuster, one smart way to do it is to take a title people know and update it for the effects era. And there's a neat symmetry, since the Technicolor version of the classic film did for color in the movies what a lot of people say that "Avatar," "Alice" -- and now, perhaps, "Wizard" -- could do for 3-D in the movies.
With its Harry Potter series drawing to an end, Warners also likes the idea of a franchise, and "Wizard of Oz" and the many books L. Frank Baum wrote featuring many of the same characters (all of which are in the public domain) fit the bill nicely. And let's not forget the property's strong, young female protagonist, hugely in vogue now in the post -Twilight" and -"Alice" eras.
There could still be questions about the project's title (the book's "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" is in the public domain but the movie's "The Wizard of Oz" is not; it's owned by MGM, whose library is partly owned by Warner Bros.). And then there's the matter of whether filmmakers would make the movie with musical elements, as the original, of course, did. Those questions aside, it could be the moneymaking formula.
Follow the yellow brick road. It's strewn with CGI, tent poles and 3-D. And, of course, a little green.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|