Credit: Variety
To some, the scariest thing about The Wizard Of Oz was always those flying monkeys. That’s all about to change though.
Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures have teamed up and are going to do what is being called as a revisionist take on the L. Frank Baum books for Oz. This is all based off of an idea by the creator of Spawn, Todd McFarlane. Josh Olson (A History Of Violence) is penning the script.
McFarlane and Olson are said to still be working on the tone of the film, but McFarlane already has some ideas. He has a vision of Oz being a dark and edgy with a strong PG-13 rating. Olson supposedly is shooting for a PG rating taking the darkness down a notch. McFarlane had a line of Wizard Of Oz toys out years ago that were very, scary to say the least.
Olson said, “I saw those toys, and Dorothy as some bondage queen isn’t something I want to do. The appealing thing about the Baum books to me is how wildly imaginative they are. They are crazy characters from amazing places. I want this to be Harry Potter’ dark, not Seven’ dark.“
Meanwhile, McFarlane does agree with Olson that a lot from the books should be blended in. “My pitch was How do we get people who went to Lord Of The Rings’ to embrace this?’ I want to create (an interpretation) that has a 2007 wow factor. You’ve still got Dorothy trapped in an odd place, but she’s much closer to Ripley from Alien’ than a helpless singing girl.“
Olson kept the plot a secret but said this won’t be a remake of The Wizard Of Oz but more so a sequel. The characters are all original, but the ideas are his he says.
