Raimi and The Wizard of Oz
Some stories have stories in them that deserve to be told.
The Wizard of Oz is one such story: when Dorothy lands in Oz and involuntarily kills the Wicked Witch of the East, we get the feeling that her arrival is a mere footnote in something bigger and far more complicated.
Who is the Wizard of Oz? How did the land come to be divided between the Witches, and how did each of them turn good or evil? Part of those questions have been given an answer of sorts by the musical Wicked, but now Sam Raimi is going for the most pressing one: Oz the Great and Powerfultackles the life and fortunes of the man at the very heart of the story.
Raimi is no stranger to the fantastic and the baroque, and here he has pulled out all the stops, to the point of looking positively Gilliam-esque.
James Franco plays the ambitious titular character, swept away from his native Kansas into the land of Oz, where he meets the witches (a distinctly non-green Mila Kunis, a typically angelic Michelle Williams and an unusually devilish Rachel Weisz) andbecomes its mysterious leader by lending his abilities to the forces of good. Or so it appears: the trailer is suitably vague about the story, but it features plenty of ravens in flight and ominous choir music.
Will it be any good? How will Raimi handle the big secret (and huge letdown) at the core of the original story, in which Oz the Great and Powerful is revealed to be an indistinct man with nothing of the wizard whatsoever about him? How does the Wicked Witch of the West get her green skin? So many mysteries, so many stories.
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