Acclaimed director John Boorman to helm CGI-animated Wizard of Oz

Since there's no songs, and the director lined up has a live-action background, I tihnk there's a good chance of this being full mo-capped with realistic CG models a la Beowulf.
 
From the guy that directed Zardoz, Deliverance, and Excalibur? That's an odd choice. I read this is going to be more closely based on the original book. I wonder if that means Dorothy is going to Glinda's home in southern Oz or if the Wicked Witch of West going to a cranky old lady with an eyepatch.

If this somehow becomes a success, I really look forward to a CGI Tik-Tok busting some wheelers.
 
It'll be interesting if the real Good Witch of the North shows up. She was completely disregarded in the movie - in fact, Glinda, who is the Witch of the South in the book, supplants her, but she plays a large role in the book (it was she, not Glinda, who set Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road). I have to wonder, though, that if this film truly is going to be a faithful adaptation of the book, whether or not accurately portraying the two Good Witches might not confuse a lot of people. Oh well. I'll take a faithful adaptation of the book any day over an abomination like Wicked. Yes, I know that the Broadway show is very successful (I have yet to see it, so maybe it's really good), but the book is awful. It takes liberties that show a level of contempt and exploitation on the part of the author that in my view is truly appalling. It's a shame that L. Frank Baum's descendants have no legal control over his creation. It would have prevented such sordid "re-imaginings" of the original tale. The only such revisionist history of Oz I've heard of that's worse than Wicked is a book called Was. I will spare you the details of THAT travesty. :mad:
 
An odd choice, yeah. But you know how we are over here in the states...any director that's from the UK is automatically deemed a better choice than anyone over here, because as we all know they don't make bad movies Just ask Guy Ritchie. :sweat:
 
I've read most of the Oz books written by Baum and the Wizard of Oz by Baum is bit more violent than the 1939 musical. The book had the Tin Woodsman killing wolves with his might axe.

Still if they somehow get to the making "The Marvelous Land of Oz", how are they going to handle the origin of Princess Ozma. I don't think General Jinjur isn't going to be a that much as problem as her.
 
Well, what I can actually understand from Zardoz, which isn't much, Boorman appears to be a fan of the book version of Oz. I mean "wiZARD of OZ" is a big clue.
 
I think it's probably because an actor with AIDS on a tragic pilgrimage and other such dark and angsty themes is about as far as you can possibly get from the original spirit of the Oz books. :sweat:
 
What's wrong with Wicked? It's not replacing the original story and it's a great read and a good musical. I don't see any real contempt in it at all, any more than, say, in Into the Woods or other revisionist fantasy stories.

I'm still hoping that the Wachowskis get to do the Wicked movie. Using the Speed Racer visual style for Oz would be truly stunning, it would let them further explore their weird sexual side, and it would certainly broaden their range.
 
Well the problem is the musical only covers ONE book. Land of Oz books number around 40 books. The musical is far more known than the series of books. Sure everyone knows about Dorothy, Scarecrow, Nick Chopper, Cowardly Lion, O.Z. Diggs, and the Wicked Witch of the West. Most movie fans don't know the other book characters, like Tik-Tok, General Jinjur, Princess Ozma, the Shaggy Man, Polychrome or the Nome King. These characters are well known to book readers but if you only about Oz through the musical, well that gets a "Huh"?

I know there's fans that want to see something that's a little closer to the book in tone. The closest we got was with "Return to Oz"

Wicked appears to be largely based on the 1939 musical with some bits take from the later books.
 
It's a story that people think they know, but don't quite know. The book is different from the movie in ways ranging from details (like the shoes being silver and not ruby) to general tone (it's a bit darker and more violent, not a whole lot, but still perceptably so).

I do hope that they do a faithful adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and that it leads to a couple sequels being made. L. Frank Baum and his books are one of the granddaddies of children's fantasy. If stuff like Harry Potter and Narnia and the Spiderwick Chronicles can get movies, then I think Oz deserves another go.
 
You make it sound as if the film was delibaretly unfaithful to the book:shrug: . Just about every change they made was a necessary or helpful one, like the deletion of the "WIthc of the North" character; I actually thought that bettered the story.
 
Sure but there's one change that the book readers consider a big disappointment. The musical says Oz is a dream land. In the books, it's a "real" fairyland on a island somewhere near Australia.
 
I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that with modern technology, particularly animation, and a more faithful take on the book, it's possible to give people a story and experience that's familiar but still different enough to be enjoyable.

Personally, I just think it would be nice to see a Cowardly Lion that actually looks like a lion, rather than a man in a lion suit.

Oh, and I want them to do the whole bit with the green glasses at the Emerald City (actually, as a grown-up, it's fun to think of that as a cute little political commentary worked into the story).
 
Didn't they do an animated series back in the 90s? Anyway, there's one thing I've always wondered about in the movie, and my assumption. Since the Yellow Brick Road leads to Emerald City (except for that fork where Dorothy met Scarecrow), would the Red Brick Road lead to the Wicked Witch of the West's castle?
 
Oh, thtas a great idea:) . I remember trying to explain to my little sister that in reality, the Emerald City wasn't even green. But wasn't that secret revelaed in one of the other books?
 
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