Here's the first trailer for Sam Raimi's "Oz: The Great and Powerful" starring James Franco, Michelle Williams, Rachel Weisz, Zach Braff (voice only), Mila Kunis, and (of course) Ted Raimi. My expectations are a bit mixed. I love Raimi (I'm trying to forget and forgive Spider-Man 3) and the cast of actors is top notch. I don't think Franco and Michelle Williams, at this point in their careers, would just phone it in on a film like this in a cash-grab effort. They're artists. The screenplay was penned by Mitchell Kapner (The Whole Nine Yards, Romeo Must Die) and David Lindsay-Abaire (Robots, Inkheart, the upcoming Rise Of The Guardians, and oddly enough the Poltergeist remake). Those two aren't exactly anything to get excited about.
Take a look at the trailer below, leave your thoughts in the comments. So far, it looks great...but so did Tim Burton's "Alice In Wonderland", which whom this film shares producers. Post your thoughts in the comments.
1 comment:
This does indeed look like a visual treat and a great potential for prequel storytelling. I've always wondered about how the Wizard of Oz came to be - it was always a mystery, a literal man behind the curtain. And some of our generation's most respectable talent are playing the lead roles. I am really excited, like equal to the excitement for Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby."
I see your hesitation when you compare it to the theatrical portrayal of Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," but I actually liked the dark and wacky Burton tone of the literary classic, it fit the book vibe and played with the essence of the book's themes: maturity vs. childlike wonder, fantasy vs. reality, expectation vs. uninhibitedness in a way that the original cartoon didn't cover. It made Alice a character that young women in our time could relate to, and who could say that of the cartoon?
I think Franco will bring his best, and I hope for the best. Making iconic characters more human and more relatable is a growing theme in Hollywood storytelling, and I dig it.
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