Watchmen director Nicole Kassell is off to see a new Wonderful Wizard Of Oz adaptation
Aux Features Nicole Kassell
2021 just started, but it’s already proving to be a productive year for the public domain. In the past few weeks we’ve heard about a Great Gatsby TV series, a sci-fi Dracula, multiple Buck Rogers things, and now New Line is joining the “we don’t have to pay anyone for the rights” fun with a new adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz. According to Deadline, this new take is coming from Emmy-winning director Nicole Kassell, who recently worked on HBO’s Watchmen, with the studio reportedly impressed with her talents as a “meticulous world-builder.”
Now, The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz is in the public domain, but it’s worth noting that New Line is owned by WarnerMedia, which also owns the 1939 Judy Garland Wizard Of Oz, which means Kassell’s project won’t be limited to stuff that’s only in the book. That means stuff that’s only in the movie, like the Ruby Slippers, are fair game. Of course, Deadline’s story doesn’t say this is a remake, just that it’s another adaptation of the book, so it’s unclear just how it will differ from those other versions. Maybe Kassell will come up with some new gimmick that could only be possible today, much like how the Ruby Slippers were meant to show off the advances in color… but would could that be? It’s Warner Bros., so maybe Jared Leto’s Joker could join Dorothy’s party in place of the Cowardly Lion.
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If it is HBO in the end, I can see them already planning storylines like “What if the lion was a recovering war criminal” and “due to sexaul assault in her childhood, Glinda uses her magic to help her be a serial rapist”
Re-adapt the book and drop all the trappings that the Garland movie added to it.When she gets to Oz, activate smell-o-vision.
Who Lollipops the Lollipop Guild?
A movie about the oppression suffered by a majoritarian group of differently sized and magically disadvantaged populations by an authoratarian witch and the struggles of their union to free themselves from that oppression has Oscar Bait written all over it
Throw in Adele Dazeem, and you might even win a Tony, haha!(Checks) Nevermind, it already has won a Tony.
There’s always the Wicked interpretation that suggests that the witch herself is being discriminated against, and that the white Midwestern girl who is her opponent may not be as good as she affects to be.
Ah, Dorothy isn’t doing anything wrong in Wicked – Elphaba’s been driven mad by her suffering by the end of the book.
Who Lulls the Lullaby League?
According to the book, Dorothy and co. go to the land of life-like porcelain dolls, so that would be interesting to see on screen.
Honestly, “Return to Oz,” for all its faults, is going to be the best Oz movie we’ll ever see. I just don’t see anyone around with the sensibilities to do Baum with any fidelity to the material and forget about craftsmanship in the era of CGI. The Victor Fleming/George Cukor/Mervyn LeRoy/King Vidor version with Garland is fine too (it gave me the first, most terrifying nightmare I had as a kid, where the flying monkeys tried to carry me away) but it doesn’t come close to capture the flavor of the book. For what it’s worth, Baum himself didn’t have the right touch either. He had a hand in the original silent versions and they are pretty weak.
I’ve read every book multiple times (give or take Glinda of Oz, haha), and I HATE Return to Oz.It goes all-in on the creepiness, when the best Baum books are balanced with joy and adventure.RtO is The Neverending Story, while Baum’s stuff is closer to The Princess Bride.
Except The Neverending Story is good (well, the book is better, of course, but I like the movie too, even if the author didn’t). The nonsense in Return to Oz where Dorothy is thought to be mentally ill and is subjected to early 20th century “treatments” like being electrically shocked has no basis in the Oz books, and is just there to be “edgy”.
The Neverending Story might be good, but it creeped 6 year old me out way too fucking much to ever appreciate it, haha
Thank god the studio doesn’t have to pull some Jackie Jormp-Jomp shit like that other nearly unwatchable movie that tried to do this, so that this soulless wringing of a 121 year old property has a chance to be a mark of quality 😊
I’m sure the contract includes the option for several sequels.
Right now, there’s someone out there who is writing a screed about how this could never top “The O.Z.” or “Tin Man” or “Emerald City.” (Emerald City was fun to watch because Tarsem does great on the visual front).“Oz The Great and Powerful” was OK in how it just kinda “matched up” with the original movie.
I did not need to be reminded of The O.Z.
This is such a distraction when they should be finishing up production on Taxi Driver II.
They could do a two-fer and combine that with some element of erotic thriller and call itself “the Ruby Shoe Diaries”
*Stop_stop_its_already_dead.jpg*
“The proud spirit of the original owners of these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they die than live the miserable wretches that they are. History would forget these latter despicable beings, and speak, in later ages of the glory of these grand Kings of forest and plain that Cooper loved to heroism.
We cannot honestly regret their extermination, but we at least do justice to the manly characteristics possessed, according to their lights and education, by the early Redskins of America.”Fuck Baum.
19th century white American had problematic opinions.Water is wet.News at 11!
A Hard-R Wizard of OZ: The Return of Vern
-directed by Nicole Kassell
-produced by Tom Fontana & Barry Levinson
Peter Dinkage hula-hooping.
So many people clamoring for this. Do you hear that clamor? It’s clamorous.
What if, now hear me out, because I know this is a stretch, but what if we take this beloved children’s tale, and make it dark and gritty. And we’ll make it a trilogy.
I hear you, but I feel like the last third would really benefit from more storytelling time. Why don’t we break film #3 into to parts, so there are 4 total?
I think that could work, since the first movie would all be about setting up the journey, and we’d only arrive at Oz in the final minutes. Also, at the end, we’d need a post-credits scene that hints at Oz’s connections to the MCU.
It’s been a while since I read the original novel, but I recall that it was indeed pretty dark. The Tin Man being responsible for chopping off each of his limbs was definitely not included in the 1939 version.And Baum wrote fourteen Oz novels, so a trilogy would be on the low end of possibilities.
There’s no way it will compare to this:
I like reimaginings of movies like this, especially if they steer it into a different genre like a western or sci-fi. I’ve always thought WoOz was a much darker and scarier prose than what the musical made it out to be. I’ve always thought this version of Oz should have gotten that more darker vibe. Yes I know we did get that sequel with Fairuza Balk and the was really weird but hopefully this one does it better.