Oz The Great and Powerful

In 2010, Disney produced Alice in Wonderland, a movie re-imagined from the original text and their original adaptation of it. To Disney’s surprise, the movie took in over a billion dollars at box offices worldwide. Based on that film’s success three years ago, Disney has decided to produce a new movie, Oz the Great and Powerful.

Based on L. Frank Baum’s turn-of-the-20th-century novels, Sam Raimi’s new movie features James Franco as the small-time circus type who remakes himself as a wizard, along with Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams as witches, with more than seventy minutes of new music.

It should be noted that the plot of one of the longest running shows on Broadway Wicked, begins before and continues after Dorothy’s arrival in Oz from Kansas. Between Wicked and Oz the Great and Powerful, a good deal of attention is paid to the pre-history of Oz as we know it.

Of course, The Wizard of Oz—as we are mostly familiar with it, thanks to the iconic movie—has never been remade. MGM holds tightly to the copyright to that movie. I would not be surprised, however, if the story will be filmed in the future; however, I do not see that happening, unless there is some unusual advancement in film making.

In 1939, the landmark advancement of color was showcased in the film. Who knows what spectacular special effect we’ll see in future movies… additional angles, text and directors’ commentaries that supplement what you’re watching on the screen… you might even be able to interact with the film to affect its outcome instead of simply being provided with alternate endings. Thanks to the seven hundred artists work on it, the massive production of Oz the Great and Powerful is nearing the finish line.

Disney is doing a great job promoting the new film. The studio has created a few trailers that are all over the internet, and there are several different posters to promote it. There are dolls, figures, household goods with branding from the movie. In addition Urban Decay marketing has created limited-edition makeup palettes inspired by the witches in the film. According to Facebook, over 900 thousand fans “like” their cosmetics. Even something like makeup alone has spread awareness to more fans about Oz.

As many of you know, television’s most expensive air time is during the Super Bowl. If I remember correctly, it costs around $3.5 million for a thirty-second ad. Disney has decided also promote the new movie during 2013 Super Bowl. As a result, I would not be surprised if there is an additional interest generated in the movie from people who would not have otherwise heard of it.

So if Wicked and Oz the Great and Powerful act as prequels to the widely-known story of The Wizard of Oz, then what does the future hold for Oz? What happens after Dorothy leaves her friends and returns home? Is that where the remaining Oz books come into play? After all, Baum wrote fourteen Oz books alone, and after him the series was continued to encompass forty total books! I would not be surprised if, after successful run of Oz the Great and Powerful, Disney or Warner Brothers would tackle future adventures in Oz.

Out of curiosity, I checked the registration of the URL domain wizardofozmovie.com and although the website does not exist, the owner of the domain is Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. The domain was created back on December 12, 2012. That indicates, to me that at least, WB is at least thinking about a new movie.

I mentioned in my previous articles that around new release of Alice in Wonderland in 2010, copies of the book title were selling three or four times as much in comparison to the year before. I predict with confidence the same trend in some way will affect Oz books, although there does not appear to be a core relationship between Oz the Great and Powerfu” and any Baum book.

Disney and Oz: A History of Wasted Opportunity

The 1985 film Return to Oz, although considered a box office failure, is among the most famous of Disney’s Oz efforts, followed in 2013 by Oz the Great and Powerful. However, that isn’t where the story starts. The Walt Disney Company has a long history with Oz, one which somewhat unfortunately hasn’t always materialized into anything very tangible.

The first connection, albeit indirect, was a series of novelizations of Disney’s classic Silly Symphonies shorts in the 1930’s by none other than the second author of the Oz series, Ruth Plumly Thompson. She was uncredited, but her writing style nonetheless very recognizable. Walt Disney approached L. Frank Baum’s widow in the late 1930’s for the film rights to the Oz sequels, but by this time the rights to the first book were already owned by MGM. It wasn’t until 1954 that they finally bought the film rights to 11 of the sequels from Baum’s son. For the next two decades Disney tried, unsuccessfully, to buy the rights to the first book from MGM, especially after the 1939 film was such a success, but MGM did not budge on the issue.

Disney attempted to use its film rights to produce a live action film entitled The Rainbow Road to Oz, but this film never made it past development, either due to an unsatisfactory script or fears that it would be compared to the 1939 MGM film. Music written for the unfinished film would appear on Disneyland LPs released by Disney in the 1960’s. A ride at Disneyland, Rock Candy Mountain, was to have been tied to The Rainbow Road to Oz, but it too was cancelled along with the film. In 1965 Disneyland Records at last produced an Oz LP, The Story of the Scarecrow of Oz featuring Ray Bolger, who played the Scarecrow in the MGM film. This was followed in 1969 by four more Oz-related LP recordings. The first was an adaptation of the first book, complete with songs from the MGM film which Disney paid to use. The second was titled The Cowardly Lion of Oz, and was unrelated to the Ruth Plumly Thompson book of the same name but instead an all-new story. The third LP was a collection of songs from the previous two, and the fourth was an adaptation of The Tin Woodman of Oz by L. Frank Baum. In 1978 there was yet another adaptation of the first book released on an LP.

With the film rights set to expire when the books entered the public domain, Disney at last saw the need to make an Oz film in the 1980’s, and in 1985 released Return to Oz, based on the 2nd and 3rd Oz books. The film stayed close to the tone of the original books, even being a bit darker than the books, containing spectacular special effects but sometimes frightening imagery, which was off-putting to a generation which had now grown up exclusively on MGM’s 1939 film, and this may have been a major factor in its unfortunate failure at the box office. Soon after, the film rights to the books finally expired, and although anyone could now make an Oz film, perhaps studios were discouraged by Return to Oz’s reception.

This wouldn’t be the last Oz project for Disney, however. In 2004, Disney purchased the rights to Jim Henson’s Muppets, and the next year released an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz starring the Muppet characters. In 2009, Disney purchased Marvel Comics, which was already adapting the Oz novels into comics by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, making this another Oz project Disney was indirectly involved with. In 2013, the Disney-produced show Once Upon a Time for ABC featured a season-long story arch involving Oz and the Wicked Witch of the West. The show was known to showcase various fairy tales, often with a Disney spin on them, and Oz was one of these.

Also in 2013, Disney would produce its second Oz live action film, Oz, the Great and Powerful. This was an attempt to capitalize on the successful live action adaptation Disney produced of Alice in Wonderland. The film was a prequel about how the Wizard first arrived in Oz, borrowing both the original books and the MGM film. The film opened to mixed reviews, but proved to be a profit. There was far more merchandise tied with the movie than there had been with Return to Oz, from dolls to books. There were talks of making the film into a trilogy, however Disney was reportedly unhappy with some of the scripts, so as of yet nothing has materialized, with each passing year making a sequel less likely.

The history of Disney and Oz is one of missed opportunities, projects that failed to materialize, and a lack of success for most of the few projects that did materialize. It could be that the shadow cast by the iconic MGM film made it impossible for Disney to create a film project that could compete with it, but it is also because of Disney buying the rights to the Oz book sequels and not doing anything with them that the Oz books have faded from the public consciousness, allowing the MGM film to be the only adaptation that the Baby Boomer generation grew up with and cementing it as the definitive version of Oz for many people. There’s no telling how things might have been different if an animated or live action Disney Oz film had been released in the 1950’s or 1960’s. Perhaps if they had been successful, we would now have as many Oz adaptations as there are of Alice in Wonderland. But, there are certain to be future adaptations of Oz at some point in the future, whether by Disney or not.

In conclusion, I would mention to my readers that if Oz books were in your mind in the past, now maybe is a good opportunity to obtain some of them before movie’s release.