Summon the flying monkeys! While various new versions of L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz have been wandering the development halls of studios through the years, the box office success of Alice In Wonderland has Warners looking for a way to get one of them into production as soon as possible.
There are several options in play right now. One is a New Line-housed script called Oz written by Shrek Forever Afte****r’s Darren Lemke that is shrouded in mystery, but is being backed by production company Temple Hill, which helped get Twilight made. Then there's one set up at Warners itself, which boasts a script by Josh Olson and ideas from Todd MacFarlane, with a darker spin on the story of Dorothy's trip from Kansas to the magic realm.
Neither script is locked in yet, but though Warners is still developing both projects, it’s apparently eager enough to call in big name directors to start discussing how to get the thing on the screen.
And don’t forget there’s some Oz-themed competition bubbling away in Universal’s cauldron, with the adaptation of the book and musical Wicked. That film’s plot would chronicle the early days of good witch Glinda and the Wicked Witch Of The West, Elphaba, who is revealed to be much more misunderstood than actually evil.
The idea of remaking the 1939 film (in 3D, naturally) doesn’t exactly fill us with glee, but we suppose it was only a matter of time before Hollywood decided to tap the franchise-ready vein of Baum’s novel series again.
All together now: sooomewhere ooover the raaainbow, there’s money to be maaade…