Walt Disney Pictures and iTunes have revealed the first teaser trailer for next year's Oz: The Great and Powerful. Director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man 2, Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn) brings his bold imagination to this fantasy adventure, which re-imagines the backstory behind the legendary motion picture The Wizard of Oz.
Rather than focus on Dorothy, the character that Judy Garland immortalized in that 1939 screen classic, Raimi's film shifts its attention to the Wizard himself (James Franco, 127 Hours), a traveling inventor and magician who journeys from Kansas to Oz, where he finds himself an unwitting participant in the conflict between Glinda, the Good Witch of the North (Michelle Williams, My Week with Marilyn), and Evanora, the Wicked Witch of the West (Rachel Weisz, The Fountain).
Looks interesting, BUT like THGhost mentioned, it looks a Tim Burton film......an awful lot like a Tim Burton film. For me personally, the really big mistake was casting James Franco. For me personally, one of the worst actors I've ever seen. He's right up there with Christian Haydensen and Shia LaBeouf.
Oz was real in the novel series. The Wizard of Oz is based off a long series of books that follow the Wizard, Scarecrow, Lion etc... before and after what happens in the 1939 movie. Read a bunch as a kid. This looks good.
@obriensg1 I guess the books must fill in a lot of gaps. I was only familiar with the movie and just thought that Oz was in Dorothy's head and the Wizard was just Dorothy's dream manifestation of that old fart fortune teller that tries to bluff Dorothy into going back home. I don't want to sound cynical, but it seems the studios are really running out of ideas. Oh, and why should the "Wizard" necessarily have to come from Kansas? Dorothy's home, I know, but... Sounds like just another one of Hollywood's CGI yawnfests. Another movie that I'll avoid but will undoubtedly afford Director Raimi his new home. I'll be watching JAWS on Blu Ray instead. The first and far superior blockbuster IMO. In fairness, I haven't seen the movie, but Hollywood doesn't have a good track record either. If only Spielberg could have seen in '75 the stuff that his classic would inspire. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. Enjoy the movie.
Looks a LOT like Disney initially wrapped it up in a big red ribbon for Tim Burton to direct, and made it look as much like You-Know-What-Movie as possible. That they got Sam Raimi instead seems more like an afterthought.
Great--First we had an Alice movie that thought it was Oz, and now we have an Oz movie that thinks it's Alice.
And not to quibble, but wasn't Elfaba the witch of the West, and Evanora the witch of the EAST?
(And she's worse than the other one was!)
I have faith in Sam Raimi. The original writer of Oz Frank Baum made 14 books and since then there have been about 30 others that have been made. The movie we all know is based off one book I believe.. I'm not a fan of lots of CGI, but I'm dying to see what Raimi does with the wicked witches.
As someone mentioned this teaser does look like a Tim Burton film. Specifically Oz looks like last years Alice in Wonderland. But again I have faith that Raimi will insert some darker moments in the film.
Why does the wicked witch's arm and hand look totally CGI? If that was a real arm painted green (like Freddy Keuger) that last scene in the trailer would be scary/creepy.
I'm anxious to see what Raimi does with 3D. Parts of the Evil Dead movies and the Spider-Man trilogy (like when Doc Ock's arms attacks the doctors in SM2) have that "comin' at ya!" quality so I think he'll have fun with the medium.
Time for a Peter Jackson/Sam Raimi collab: The Evil Deadalive! (OK that's out of my system). Seriously, I'd like to see Hollywood take on more of the original source material from the OZ books. Studios were nervous about filming the stories in the old days because of the communist connotations people saw in them then. These days people are so scared of Muslims they probably don't even remember what communism is. The time could be right for an OZ renaissance.
@Solo - There were a few attempts (there's a -reasonably- faithful version of Land of Oz with Shirley Temple in the 50's), just that it was a little hard to do Jack Pumpkinhead or Tik-Tok on low-tech FX, and everyone was too busy trying to homage the 30's movie.
Baum's Oz wasn't "communist", just a Utopia where everyone had a silly bit of Nebraska horse sense, and no one had to work to buy or sell anything because it all grew on trees, and that feels like what we're NOT getting here, with the faux-Alice art direction, Danny Elfman music, and "dark" Alice everyone remembers. Sigh...Strike 2, 37 years after Return to Oz.
@EricJ: From what I can tell, the Wicked Witches didn't have lasting official names; "Elphaba" for the WWotW was coined from L. Frank Baum's initials by Gregory Maguire for his Wicked books, which inspired the musical. (His name for the WWotE was "Nessarose".) Baum did name the Good Witch "Glinda"; Maguire kept it even though his Glinda was born "Galinda" and later changed it after a talking goat-turned-college professor kept pronouncing it "Glinda" before dying (books) or losing his voice (musical).
Per both Wikipedia & IMDb, in this movie Theodora (Mila Kunis) is the WWotW while Evanora (Rachel Weisz) is the WWotE; Glinda (Michelle Williams) is still the Good Witch. The official Disney site confirms the names & actresses, but doesn't say which is which; it just says Oz meets "three witches" and names them.
@Ray O. Blu: How on earth could you preorder this??? It won't even hit theaters for another 8 months; it's too early for even "preorder the BD now & get a movie ticket" deals like Prometheus.
Why is everyone happy that Raimi directed this? Have any of you seen Spiderman 3? What about Drag Me to Hell? Pure crap. The entire Spiderman trilogy was a boring yawn fest and could have been sooo much better. I blame directing and casting. Same problem that this movie is going to have.
Walt Disney Pictures and iTunes have revealed the first teaser trailer for next year's Oz: The Great and Powerful. Director Sam Raimi (
