Since there's not much movie news this week... I thought I'd write up a blog talking about the upcoming movie "Dorothy of Oz", which is supposed to be out in theaters this year. For those who don't know (I think that most do by now), the movie is a CG animated musical based on the book by Roger S. Baum. Even though from the looks of it, the movie's not much like the book. The movie starts when Dorothy gets back to Kansas in "The Wizard of Oz" and is called back to Oz immediately after by the Scarecrow's latest invention, the Rainbow Mover... yeah. None of that was in Roger Baum's book. The movie's got Lea Michele, Dan Aykroyd, Jim Belushi, Martin Short, Kelsey Grammer, etc.
Though I'm not involved in the movie or have any direct association with the production, I do happen to stay in contact with several investors and animators from the movie. And though the Facebook and Twitter page have been keeping quiet for some time now, there's a lot going on behind the scenes...
For starters, half of the movie is being done in California and half of it is being done in India, which is pretty difficult to manage for one director. So, they added Will Finn as a second director, to help out Dan St. Pierre. They are now both in India as well as producer Bonne Radford to supervise work that's being done there by Prana Animation Studios, who are already deep into animating the movie. It seems like when they got there, they noticed a sequence in particular that needed to be re-written in the movie.
According to an animator I was speaking to, things are crazy right now. The whole production is a mess. They're having to start from scratch and re-animate several minutes of footage, which seems to really be slowing down the process. It's less than eight months to the proposed release date, and by the looks of it, the movie will not be ready in time. Which most likely calls for a delay.
I want to mention that the movie was first announced in 2007 through Animation Magazine, and that the release date has since then been moved back more than once, so this may not come as a surprise to those who have been really following the movie since before all the recent publicity.
Another thing that may have slowed the production down is that the state of California has been getting after them on investor-related terms. After filing a complaint against the company (then called Alpine Pictures) in 1999, a Desist and Refrain Order for violations of the Corporations Code was issued by the state in late 2009. Several people who have invested in independent films done by the studio in the past have openly shared their experiences online on websites like this.
The producers and directors are trying their hardest to get the film released by year's end, but it could be likely that we won't see this film until 2013. It's been a long wait for this movie, and there's been a lot of hype surrounding the production. This delay will disappoint people who were interested from the what now seems to be premature advertising. Also, by winter, we'll probably be seeing promotion for Disney's Oz: The Great and Powerful going into high gear, making the release of another Oz film during that time awkward.
Much as we at the Royal Blog of Oz want to support these films, the timing will almost certainly mean less of a success for one of these.
5 comments:
Very fascinating report. Though I have a certain interest in this film largely because it's an Oz movie, and to a lesser extent because I like several of the vocal talents they've hired, I can't say my expectations have been especially high since I first read about it, and this news does nothing to strengthen my opinion. Having seen some of the character designs online, I will say that I'm not sure what it is about them that would be considered an infringement on the 1939 movie, except for maybe Dorothy, who does resemble a younger Judy Garland a bit. Now, the Emerald City as seen on the official website, that definitely looks like it was inspired by the MGM musical.
If the movie does finally get released close to "Oz the Great and Powerful," it wouldn't be the first example of similarly-themed movies coming out around the same time. Hopefully I'm wrong, but I have a feeling "Dorothy of Oz" could be to "Oz the Great and Powerful" as "The 13th Floor" was to "The Matrix."
I am amused at how blatant a rip-off this teaser art is... the one of the Jester staring into the crystal ball.
It's a copy-cat image of the teaser art for Disney's 1985 film "Return to Oz", painted by Drew Struzan, showing Mombi looking at a big "OZ".
Neat homage, eh? :)
Ironically, hadn't noticed the similarity between the teaser poster art for this movie and Return to Oz, though I had observed that the image of the villain looking down into a crystal ball on the poster has been done several times before. other examples would be "Labyrinth," "Enchanted," "Legend" and "The Return of Jafar."
From what I remember hearing, I thought the homages (rip-offs?) to MGM were fully intentional, right down to the farmhands reappearing in it. I guess not.
I think they were, Nathan. Thing is, they didn't realize, "We should check if we can do this legally."
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