CGOz

So, over the past couple days, there's been some news about CGI-animated Oz films.

First off, John Boorman (director of the Oz-inspired "Zardoz") has been signed on to direct (and he cowrote the script for) a new adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as an animated film. What interested me is that it's being produced by a French studio, though they are doing the movie in English. Some of the best Oz movies I've seen were produced outside of the United States. Of course, any movie-making is fickle, but I'm looking forward to the finished product!
(Link to news story.)

While The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus isn't an Oz story, Baum did connect it to the Land of Oz in later works. It's been adapted into two television movies, it inspired an animated video, and was the basis of what seems to have been a popular anime television series. (Though that's never been released on any type of video.) Now, it's being animated AGAIN, this time for theaters! This is one of my favorite non-Oz Baum fantasy books. It is expected to be sold to a distributor for a Christmas 2010 release. Might be the next Christmas classic, might be the next hit-and-miss. It is also being produced overseas.
(Link to news story.)

I have blogged about how I re-read that book every Christmas... It'll soon be time to go back to do it again!

And today, someone linked me to a storyboard gallery for Alpine Pictures' Dorothy of Oz. Well... seeing it got me less-than-enthused... I felt that the book was one of Roger S. Baum best offerings, and the artwork and accompanying text let me know that this is going way off from that. I'll let you see for yourself: LINK.

Time will tell how these movies do...